The 2010 Volkswagen GTI is a fantastic sports sedan for four with a 200-hp turbocharged engine and a double-clutch gearbox. VW delivers as standard four technology features that cost $1,000 or more on other cars: Bluetooth, an iPod adapter, satellite radio, and a big LCD display. Think of the VW GTI as a Mini Cooper with a usable back seat and bigger trunk.

Only a handful of automakers' models make Bluetooth and iPod adapters standard even though most people have cellphones and most states require that mobile phones by used hands-free while driving. Even rarer is VW's inclusion of a center stack color LCD display on all GTIs in the production run, even if there's no navigation system. For driver and passenger, the LCD makes it easier to navigate through long music folders; on a standard radio display, it's painful. A smaller LCD display in the center of the instrument panel replicates key music or navigation information.

On the Road: Great Fun for Driver and Passenger
I drove the GTI at a recent press introduction that covered San Francisco's crowded downtown streets, twisty and hilly Marin County parkland that borders the ocean, and a high-speed slalom course in Alameda in the shadow of the mothballed aircraft carrier USS Hornet. There is no place the GTI is not at home. My thoughts driving through San Francisco: It would be cooler pulling up to valet parking in a Mini Cooper but even when you move up to the larger Mini Clubman, the Golf/GTI wins hands-down for carrying four passengers because it's a foot longer.

You can get leather upholstery but VW offers grippy cloth inserts, which are almost as good as heated and cooled leather seats, and a lot cheaper. Go the for the navigation system and you get a 30GB hard disk with 20GB reserved for music and an in-dash SD card slot.

VW offers two transmissions, a six-speed manual and an automated six-speed mechanical direct shift gearbox (DSG). Think of the DSG as a manual gearbox except the car engages the clutch, not your left foot. Picking the $1,100 DSG is a no-brainer. The DSG actually accelerates faster than the manual gearbox, 6.7 seconds 0-60 mph claimed by VW (and just under 6 seconds as tested by car magazines. Fuel economy is better, 24 mpg city, 32 mpg highway using premium fuel vs. 21/31 for the six-speed manual. If you want to shift for yourself, VW provides paddle shifters on the steering wheel, or you can push the console shifter forward/backward. 

Where the GTI Misses Perfection
A couple areas were troubling:
-- On our early production model, the iPod track and tune information displayed nicely, but only for the first song in a playlist, unless you manually punched the next track button. Let's hope that's a bug not a feature.
-- The steering wheel buttons are plentiful but small and similarly shaped. They'll be hard to jab (correctly) in a hurry or with gloves on. And the chrome-faced climate control adjusters at the bottom of the center stack were hard to read. It may be VW's way of scaring off buyers too old for its core demographic. If you can't see the temperature settings without reading glasses and a flashlight, tough.
-- If you want sport seats and their lumbar support feature, you must get VW's leather package and say goodbye to the grippy cloth inserts. Plus, VW's leather isn't all that convincingly leather-looking. If you want heated seats, you have to buy the non-GTI golf models.
-- The 6.5-inch center stack LCD display is small. If VW moved the side buttons to the bottom, an 8-inch display would fit.
-- The steering wheel cuts off the tops of the instrument panel dials unless you adjust the wheel all the way up. Most every car has this problem but that doesn't make it right.
-- The dual exhaust is delightfully sporty for an hour at a time. On an all-day drive, you may wish for a bit less droning unless you're a hard-core enthusiast traveling without passengers. It's not rude-loud the way replacement mufflers are on tuner cars, merely more noticeable than standard Golf mufflers. The value of an Audi or BMW that costs half again as much is that you get sportiness without the harshness of cheaper cars.

Cheaper Than a BMW, More Room Than a Mini Cooper
Volkswagen bounces back and forth between calling its mainstream compact sedan Rabbit and Golf. The sixth generation, the 2010 model, is called "Golf" while "Rabbit" is dead-never--to-be-resurrected, VW says. There are three versions: the mainstream gas-engine Golf that starts at $18,240, the clean-diesel Golf TDI ($22,939 and up) that gets 41 mpg on the highway, and the bat-out-of-hell GTI ($24,239). The other two make more economic sense as good compact car transportation. The GTI is the car you want if your tastes run to a BMW 3 Series or Infiniti G37 and your purchasing power falls $10,000 short. Or if you want a Mini Cooper but need a back seat that holds more than grade-schoolers.

Note that as you move down to the more affordable non-GTI models, some of the GTI-standard features go away. The standard LCD display disppears, Bluetooth becomes a $200 option, and navigation is only available in the diesel models.

What to Buy
Competitors include the Mazdaspeed3 and Subaru WRX. The Mazda is a very good car except for its weird and tiny navigation system embedded at the base of the windshield. The WRX design takes some getting used to, but it's quick. You'd be happy with any of them. The GtI is the one that's stealthiest. Here's how I'd equip a VW GTI, assuming I'm not interesting in approaching the maximum possible sticker price of $32,900:

Start with the four-door GTI with DSG, $25,939 including $750 shipping. The car is more practical and looks better with four doors (a $700 upcharge). Stick with the cloth seats because the side bolsters are pretty good on the non-sports seats. Leave off the $1,000 sunroof because it's not that big compared to the megapanels on other cars. Get the xenon headlamps ($700) for night driving and the Dynaudio upgrade ($476). Finish it off with the navigation system ($1,750) with its SD reader and hard drive for music. Bottom line: $28,665. Enjoy!