Validation for the Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT walked up next to me on the sleepy Main Street of an old Orange Coast beach town. Lady Lawyer and I met the senior partner of the firm for breakfast, 7:45. The café would not open till 8 am. I parked the SRT across the street from the restaurant, Lady Lawyer parked behind me. I wasn’t out of Grand Cherokee for 30 seconds before a sharply dressed fifty-something guy was at my shoulder, peppering me with questions.

“What’s the horsepower? Do you love it?”

“Four hundred and seventy horse. It’s a monster. A six-point-four.”

“How’s it handle? Can it be ordered with a third row?”

“Handles like a tall car, maybe a bit like a truck. It has this cool knob to adjust the stability control. There’s a track setting so you can slide it around. I think it splits the torque 65 percent to the rear.” And on and on.

He then said, and I quote directly, “You know it will run circles around my Cayenne.” He turned at the waist to gesture toward the perfectly preserved Cayenne S a dozen paces away, his since new.

“You’d lose any drag race, but you’d keep up on a mountain road. Cayenne Turbo would beat it,” I told him.

“This thing is a battle wagon, the USS Iowa. I wish I could launch explosive projectiles from a pivoting gun mounted on the hood.” Porsche Man smiled, lifting an eyebrow.

He was a stereotypical Porsche owner: neat as a pin, perfectly groomed, intense, demanding, clearly successful and prosperous. I let him have a few minutes to crawl around. He raved about the interior, pointing to the carbon-fiber accents and stitched dashtop, running his hands over the seating, goosing the hip and lat bolsters. He wanted to see the cargo hold. He was obsessed with the idea of a third row and I couldn’t get him off it. He loved the hood snorkels.

Then the key question: “How much?”

“Fifty-four to start, but this one is loaded, about sixty-three grand. I expect most dealers will mark it up. Easy profit.”

A slight nod of his head, Swiss watch precision, not put off by the price tag, his eyes firing up intensely, examining exterior details of the vehicle. Then he lunged back into the interior, taking the steering wheel in his hand, reached for the knob that controls performance setting.

“Is it all-wheel drive?”

“They call it full-time four-wheel drive. Transfer case. It’s all controlled with electronics, not mechanical, not a Torsen.”

Quiet, intently scrutinizing the interior, pulling back and squatting down to look at the Brembo brakes, massive 20-inch Pirelli Scorpion tires and gorgeous sculpted alloys—his mind calculating. Looking at the massive Brembos, he turned his head and grinned at me.

He stood up, made a few off-hand remarks to Lady Lawyer, asking if she liked being in it—he’s a Porsche guy, so he wants to know if women like it. While Porsche Man lingered, we walked across the empty Main Street to the café for breakfast with Senior Partner.

So, a prosperous guy with a Porsche Cayenne S beelines for the vehicle, he clearly knows EXACTLY what it is, he’s intrigued and considering. Do you need any more validation for the Jeep SRT’s existence? Sure, it’s likely he’ll stick with a Porsche because the dealership experience is so good, and he clearly wanted to know about a third row, something the Cayenne does not have and he hoped the SRT might. And yes, Jeep SRT is probably a profit drag on the Grand Cherokee line, as earning back the engineering and planning investment will take a couple of years, but Chrysler, Fiat, Dodge and Jeep need vehicles that remind people they exist, that highlight their yet-again rediscovered groove.

Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT needs no further argument to justify its existence and its value to the enterprise. And this Cayenne S owner was not the only such Porsche Man to approach us.

Into The Desert

In point of fact, Lady Lawyer’s first ride came the following day. She opens the massively proportioned door, marvels at the leather, then steps up into the rig. “These are the greatest seats! I feel like Queen Victoria on the throne of England! These are amazing. Maybe one of these can be my company car.” Yeah, well, start making more money.

As we pull away, I flip the switch to turn on her seat air-conditioning and within a matter of seconds Lady Lawyer sounds like I’ve tricked her with a whoopee cushion. “Ooooh! I LOVE this,” squealing with delight. “I can see how you simply could not go back to ordinary seats after having a set of air-conditioned and ventilated seats.” Then, “How do you explain the benefit to someone without provoking all kinds of jokes of an intimate nature?”

Air-conditioned seats hard at work, we aim the SRT’s prow to the south and east for a late-afternoon visit with our little surgeon friend who is staying in Rancho Mirage for a few days. Next stop, Bob Hope Boulevard, Palms Springs. We fired up the heated steering wheel just to try it out. A great feature for the Tony Sopranos of New Jersey who will probably want this vehicle. And for women with cold hands.

Lady Lawyer has an obsession with tall, airy greenhouses, and she loves moonroofs. Imagine her delight when the power sunvisor was retracted on the “Command View” panoramic moonroof that offers a view above to front and rear passengers? And then we opened it while puttering around Rancho Mirage in the cooling air of dusk. Heaven. You’d think such a big hole in the roof would turn the Jeep into a bundle of spaghetti, but the body structure is stout and strong. Doors shut with authority and a wonderful cooosh! Sound.

With 470 horsepower and 465 lb ft. of torque on tap, you own the highway. You pass at will. To paraphrase a famous line from the movie Lawrence of Arabia, in the Grand Cherokee SRT you go where you please and strike where you please, and this is what makes the Grand Cherokee SRT great. No one can block your way if there’s the least gap in traffic. Roll-on acceleration from 70 mph is phenomenal for a beast that weighs more than two and a half tons. Any opening is yours for the taking. What a sense of supreme power. Command View, indeed.

SRT was built on concepts first developed at Ford SVT, carefully scaled to suit the sort of products the Detroiters know how to make: major investment in powertrain, brakes, suspension tuning/development, and whatever lower body kit and interior bits you can afford.

As Grand Cherokee is already an expensive vehicle, SRT carried out fairly extensive modification to the interior, with unique seat coverings and carbon trim, plus those snorkels. Our car was loaded to the snorkels, including the leather-stitched dash and door and center console. If you’re going to buy an SRT Jeep, go all the way. The leather makes this feel as good as any German sedan.

But the key components, the primary and secondary controls and switchgear, are the same as in those wimpy V6 Cherokees. And to our surprise, the switchgear and controls are executed to a fairly high level. Example? The light switch, which rotates with oiled precision. To turn on the fogs, depress the switch. Delightful, just like all the controls inside the vehicle. Maybe Chrysler needs to be fighting its way back from near-death to achieve greatness. The results are amazing.

Due to weight and ride height, Jeep SRT does not feel as car-like or quite as nimble as an Infiniti FX50, which is in essence a tallboy wagon based on Infiniti’s sedan components, and a vehicle we very much like. The Infiniti is a thousand pounds lighter, and has 80 fewer horsepower. Similar calculations apply when discussing the Cayenne S.

The cargo area is also well turned out, with a nod to the likes of Jaguar and Range Rover, polished spears on the cargo floor, and polished cargo tie-downs. Beautiful, rich, and downright posh, words one would not normally associate with Jeep.

And then the audio system, which we demo’d outside the Rancho Mirage home, acting like East LA lowrider guys with a super-boosted system. Open a door, carefully dial up the volume, and you can rattle windows. Yet at NO POINT do you lose clarity and precision. The sound field is rich and deep, reproducing minor sounds with exceptional sharpness. You listen to a symphony and you’ll hear the most must subtle percussion instruments.

We didn’t use it during our short loan, but our SRT had the rear-seat DVD entertainment center. So, no third row, but you can keep the rug rats entertained.

We have a nickname for the outer reaches of LA that lay between our beach home and Palm Springs: Mulletville: You know you’ve hit Mulletville when all of a sudden most of the cars are really shabby and worn out. SRT has an answer, above and beyond supreme highway acceleration. Blindspot warning. In something this large, I like parking sensors and rearview cameras. But Chrysler’s blindspot system is exceptionally good. If a citizen of Mulletville pulled up on our flanks, hiding in the rear three quarter, well, the sensors warned us with a bright, distinct yellow hash mark on the sideview mirror. Fabulous. If only it were tied to a missile launcher to accurately range the targets in need of destruction.

Also in Mulletville, but just as much in more prosperous areas, we experienced homage that validates Jeep SRT for men who value integrity and performance over pretention. Most of the guys on Ninja bikes on I-10 and the Pomona freeway, came by and gave the motorcyclist fingers-down salute, a brand of recognition and homage we also experienced in the Nissan GT-R, another vehicle that transcends socio-economic class. These riders, rag-tag on their hard-ridden Ninjas and GSX-Rs, ratty backpacks flapping in the breeze, gave homage to the mighty Battle Wagon. Long ago working my way through college, I was one of those ragtag motorcyclists with a ratty backpack, covered with oil thrown up from the chain, my blue jeans similarly spattered with dots of chain lube. I accepted their salutes with deepest satisfaction, and whenever possible gave them a roll-on demonstration, which is what they wanted. There is no group more aware of true and honest performance than young males on super bikes. They know the real deal from pretentious technology. And they love the Jeep SRT.

Damning With Faint Praise

OK, what’s not to like? On our highway drive, the quirky radar cruise control caused slight consternation. I don’t share the Detroit passion for lots of fiddly cruise control buttons on the steering wheel when a simple stalk within fingertip reach behind the steering wheel rim is such a good solution. Also, we were not entirely enamored with the radar component of the “adaptive” cruise control, but we have a dislike for all such systems. On the upside, you can adjust the sensitivity of the radar, so cars slightly ahead of you in the next lane will not impact your cruise settings when the road curves—your radar will not hit the tail end of a semi tractor trailer when you take a bend on the freeway. That constitutes progress on these adaptive systems.  After a bit of experimentation on the fly, we were able to adapt to the Chrysler cruise control.

We might as well cover the only other points anyone could possibly criticize. First, Jeep SRT burns a whole lot of premium gas if you are constantly mashing the throttle, and it is virtually impossible NOT to mash the throttle whenever someone in the car needs a giggle, or some kid on a Ninja bike wants a demo, or some Mulletville citizen in a ratty old Mustang wants to throw down.

Second, the steering wheel has an alloy lower spar that includes the bottom section of the rim. This can be slippery in the hands when you’re working around a corner, shuffle-steering. I’d keep the alloy spar, but wrap the entire rim with leather. This is a cool design affectation, but it does impact your helmsmanship when giving this battle wagon the full right boot. In a vehicle so utterly free of affectation, this wheel is out of place.

And that’s it. It burns a lot of gas, it has radar cruise control with fiddly buttons, and the steering wheel’s alloy section is annoying when you’re really hustling. That, and you can’t expect brainwave sports car handling from a two and a half ton beast. Once you get accustomed, you can really hustle the Jeep SRT, but you won’t mistake it for a Porsche Panamera Turbo.

In other words, Jeep SRT is damn near perfect.

Jeeps Means Something

Jeep is an international brand, the only one Fiat owns. Fiat itself is not yet an international brand because they have not yet made a successful comeback in the US. Chrysler, Dodge, “Ram,” Lancia, these are not international brands. Sure, OK, Ferrari and Maserati are, but they don’t count in the mainstream world. And we have contrary thoughts about how to handle Alfa and Abarth.

Jeep represents America at its best, when we liberated Europe and Asia from Fascism. Rugged, dependable, stout, battle-proven. How can you not like a Jeep? Particularly this one, but also the classic Wrangler, which has seen a distinct rise in build quality over the past couple of years. You’d have to be a supercilious affected twerp not to respect Jeep. And now Jeep makes a vehicle that competes with and in many measures beats the best from Europe.

Marketing and Product Planning

I ran into a few guys I know. Smart guys, in the business, marketing and product planning. Know their stuff, many successful and profitable mainstream vehicles to their credit. They were impressed with Jeep SRT’s performance, style, quality and features, but they simply didn’t understand the vehicle.

“How does this fit with Jeep’s trail-rated philosophy? You can’t drive this car off-road? Look at those tires!”

They also wanted to know how this car is related to the Mercedes ML. I told them they were fished out of the same chromosomal soup, they are related, but whether they’re half-brothers or merely cousins is a story for Daimler, Cerberus and Chrysler guys to tell once they’re retired. I don’t know and I don’t care. The Jeep Grand Cherokee has incredibly high body build quality. It feels solid and well put together.

The conversation continued. “Chrysler has a long history of this sort of thing. Quirky, over-powered cars.”

“Yeah. Letter cars from the Fifties, Super Bees, Roadrunners, Hemi ‘cudas, and the like. They’re always climbing out of a hole and falling back in.”

“I just don’t get how this fits their brand. It’s not even a body-on-frame vehicle. Not Trail-rated.”

The answer is simple, delivered at the top of the page, and delivered by the Ninja Boys of Mulletville. Jeep will make a few thousand of these a year, and can likely make those sales goals every year this generation of Grand Cherokee exists. Jeep SRT will pay back the engineering investment over time. In the meantime, who cares if it’s not trail-rated? If you can get a Porsche guy to run across the street to look at a Jeep, you’ve won. Victory. Success. No further argument must be mounted in support of this vehicle. Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT is a grand slam in the bottom of the ninth.

Which leads to the next thought for a future SRT project. Can you drop this motor and drivetrain into a Ram that fills the roll once held by the Ford SVT Lightning? The original SRT10 Ram was a hot rod, amazing to drive, but totally impractical. Put this drivetrain underneath a Ram and you have the hottest pickup in America.

Conclusion

Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT has that unexpected out-of-the-blue component which appeals to males who know cars. The European competitors are obvious. A Range Rover Sport says, “I’m well-off, and can spend ninety to a hundred on a big sport wagon.” Jeep SRT is a secret handshake that says, “I like to drive fast, I love acceleration, I got a smokin’ deal, and I’m one of the guys.”

Jeep is an honest brand, not a pretentious brand like Range Rover. So Grand Cherokee SRT appeals to honest males who want the power and enjoy the unexpected component of a hot-rod Jeep battle wagon. It will hold little to no appeal for the sort of spoiled, pampered women you find waddling around in Range Rover Sports or their German equivalents.

Though clearly it lives outside the Jeep trail-rated world, Grand Cherokee SRT is one of the most daring and welcome additions to the automotive world this year. It’s impossible to not love the Grand Cherokee SRT.

Just like Ford SVT in the past, Jeep SRT will bring in a totally alien sort of buyer. I hope the Chrysler/Fiat/Jeep dealers are smart enough to treat them well and give them a good ownership experience.

Prime Numbers

• Price: MSRP: $54,470. As Tested: $63,975
• Engine: 6.4-liter pushrod Hemi V8
• Horsepower: 470 hp @ 6,000
• Torque: 465 lb ft @ 4,300
• Drivetrain: Full-time four-wheel-drive with five-speed automatic transmission, single-speed transfer case with electronic proportioning, ELSD rear differential
• Suspension F/R: Short-Long Arm (SLA), coils springs, Bilstein adaptive damping/Independent multi-link, coil springs, Bilstein adaptive damping,  aluminum lower control arm, upper links, toe-control link, anti-roll bar
• Length: 191.3-in.
• Width: 84.9-in.
• Height: 69.1-in.
• Wheelbase: 114.8-in.
• Weight: 5,150 lbs

Alternatives To Consider

Infiniti FX50. Infiniti FX50 is a thousand pounds lighter, and has 80 fewer horsepower. It’s tuned more like a car, with superior handling. You don’t have that sense of throwing a big truck around. It’s a tallboy Infiniti sport wagon, and in some ways is likely closer to what a Maserati CUV should be. Downsides are the suspension, which is a bit harsh with those monster 20-inch wheels. Next obvious upgrade is to drop the 5.6-liter version of the V8 into the FX.

Range Rover Sport. After driving the Jeep, it’s hard to justify this Indian-English rig. Dodgy long-term quality. Like Jaguar, Range Rover has a negative female image, a favored chariot for pretentious housewives. It has about 200 fewer horsepower, so it’s definitely not a “sport” sport utility vehicle. The still-available supercharged version is down by 100 horsepower. Inside, Rangies are a unique experience, beautifully tailored, smoking jacket optional. It’s several hundred pounds heavier than the Jeep. Admittedly, it retains its “trail capability,” and even the Sport model will walk up goat trails. If you live in Santa Fe and have a ranch outside town, OK, this is your town vehicle, you can easily drive around your ranch property, and you have a real work truck at the ranch. But I can’t see why any proper aggressive male would want the Range Rover instead of the Jeep unless you find Fiat/Chrysler/Jeep dealers scary and you really get along with the guy who owns your Jaguar/Range Rover dealership. Comparably equipped in supercharged form, it’s also about $25,000 more than the Jeep SRT, though Range Rover and Jaguar offer swingin’ deals to move the iron. You pay a lot for the Queen Elizabeth ambiance and limited dealer network.

Porsche Cayenne S/Cayenne Turbo. Nothing to complain about here. Exceptional. But more expensive. Cayenne S is several hundred pounds lighter, but is down by 70 horsepower. Cayenne S comparably equipped is $20K+ more, and does not match features like the SRT 19-speaker audio system. To have more power, you have to step up to the Turbo, and there’s no trouble hitting $115,000. The SRT will win most of the drag races, the Porsche will be easier and more pleasurable to drive quickly on a mountain road, and is certainly more prestigious, but there’s less inside-cool to the Porsche. You’re stating that you have the cash to own it. The Jeep SRT is a secret handshake. And oddly, “enthusiasts” still criticize the beautiful and highly capable Cayenne, yet they embrace the Jeep SRT.

Damning With Faint Praise

Praise

• This rig is so fast and so capable, why would you not want it as an everyday bludgeon?
• Hemi V8. Massive power, massive torque, fairly smooth and quiet for a pushrod engine—gutty, amazingly gutty.
• Sophisticated multi-link suspensions front and rear, allowing engineers to really control the position and camber and angle of each wheel in a very wide range of cornering and performance conditions. It’s not a sports car, but it is amazingly capable for a massive Battle Wagon.
• Brembos. Fifteen inches up front, with six piston calipers. Really, do we need to say more? That’s a whole lot of fancy Italian brake, and the very best the world has to offer.
• And out back, 13.78 inch Brembos with no less than four-piston calipers. This rig weighs as much as the USS Iowa so you need the braking capability, but Brembo delivers.
• 20-inch alloys are gorgeous, real pieces of industrial sculpture. Wrap them in 295/45 Pirelli Scorpions and you just want to hug a wheel every time you park the SRT.
• A cult hit that neatly falls into Chrysler muscle car tradition going back to the Letter cars of 1955 and on.
• 5,000 lb. tow capacity. I think my former Ford SVT colleagues now at Chrysler shared the conclusions we drew at SVT in the Nineties when creating the second-gen Lightning pickup: you MUST retain utility in a high-performance truck or SUV.
• 19 speakers? 825 Watts max power? Are you kidding me? You can park outside someone’s house, open just one door, and rattle their windows.

Damnation

• It’s not a trail-rated Jeep, so it doesn’t quite fit into the Jeep language. And damn we’re happy about that. Who cares?
• It’s expensive for a Jeep, but compared to the German and English competition, it’s a bargain so long as the dealers are not gouging on mark-up. Keep in mind it’s Americans who love this sort of vehicle, even if they’re well-off and think only a German car projects their self-image.
• The steering wheel has an alloy lower spar that includes the bottom section of the rim. This can be slippery in the hands when you’re working around a corner, shuffle-steering. We’d keep the alloy spar, but wrap the entire rim with leather. This is a cool design affectation, but it does impact your helmsmanship when giving this battle wagon the full right boot.
• That 470 hp Hemi drinks a lot of gasoline. But after three or four acceleration runs, you’re so intoxicated with power, who cares? Pump more oil out of Alaska and the Gulf and seize the Venezuelan oil fields to ensure we can keep driving these cars.

Due to Thanksgiving travel, we had limited time with the KIA Optima Hybrid. Oddly enough, that doesn’t really impact a review. Though this will not be a nuanced and detailed account, it’s easy to sum up the Optima Hybrid after only a couple of drives along an empty PCH and a few quick freeway interchanges, plus around-town shuttling.

First, the bad news. The Hyundai/KIA hybrid system is no equal for either the Toyota or Ford Fusion systems, proving considerably less refined. Toyota Camry Hybrid and Fusion Hybrid would not be our first choices, either, as we’d go for a Prii of one sort or another. Hard to deny the leaders.

Driving the Optima Hybrid, there’s a clear step between regenerative braking and conventional mechanical braking, as on the first-gen Prius of 2001. Toyota fixed that problem, and so can KIA. It’s a matter of refinement, and focused engineering work.

Under medium throttle, the engine fires up gruffly. Under the lightest possible throttle, attempting to stay in EV puttering along at parking lot speeds, the engine fluttered in quietly and smoothly. Clearly, KIA and Hyundai are on the right path, but they have not yet mastered the concept. Probably quite a lot of software coding left to script to smooth the interplay of electric motors and gas engine. For us to delve in any deeper than this is pointless. It’s better than the now-aborted Nissan Hybrid system, but it’s no equal for the two best passenger car systems

Now, the good news, which is pretty much everything else about the Optima Hybrid, and you can figure it out for yourself walking around one in a parking lot, or taking a short drive. With its great-looking alloys and lower body kit, Optima Hybrid’s exterior design is a triumph. Interior design, interior packaging, and for the most part interior materials garner similar praise. We end up wondering just how nice a top-line KIA Optima with the standard gasoline engine must be. That’s likely the Optima to buy.

Optima Hybrid is handsome, very handsome, as in Alfa Romeo handsome. A bit more refinement of the lines, uprated detailing (better head- and taillights, more substantial door handles, richer detailing of grilles and grille inserts, etc) and it could pass for a compact Jaguar at ten paces. It certainly has finer proportions than a Jaguar XJ, a car that completely loses the thread at the rear end, turning into a member of the Narwhal species.

Yet Optima Hybrid is not overly pretty and feminine, like the Mazda6. The Optima Hybrid has sculpted, handsome and substantial forms, very masculine. Hard not to like it.

Approaching the Optima in a parking lot, I had a moment of unreality, of vertigo. I thought, “Really? That’s a KIA?” Photos tell the tale, but the car is well drawn, with excellent detailing for a mid-size mainstream family sedan. I once interviewed at the original KIA agency, in San Francisco. Because the cars were so dowdy, so homely, and so poorly built, I suggested they use a Godzilla monster and humor to launch the brand. Oddly enough, they did. But the 2012 Optima Hybrid is several light years removed from the KIA Sephia and the original Sportage, both of which were engineering and design abominations beyond mention. That was 20 years ago.

Ten years ago, I attended the launch of the original KIA Optima, on a run from the Sonoma Mission Inn to Bodega Bay and back. At that time, KIA worked a lot with both Lotus Engineering and Porsche Engineering, so the car had a slick Tiptronic system, and a very well-sorted chassis. The then-CEO of KIA’s US operations asked me to push the car a bit on the curves near Bodega, and we were both surprised at its poise and capability, in part due to its multi-link rear suspension. I had no end of fun sliding the Optima around corners near Bodega. Sure, it was losing speed sliding, but it was very controllable. That was just over ten years ago. In the past five years, KIA has gone ballistic, quality and design on a steep upward path

Inside? Materials quality and more importantly assembly quality is several notches above what we found in the KIA Soul, and more like what we found in the KIA Sportage that began to change opinions around here of the capabilities of Korean companies. Panels come together smoothly, with neat, tight seams.

Thanks to the long wheelbase that Hyundai specced in an attempt to position the Sonata/Optima slightly above Camry and Accord, Optima has a rear seat that’s roomy and comfortable. My big feet and long legs were no trouble at all—could have taken a nap without trouble. For perspective, we looked up rear legroom on Mercedes C- and E-class sedans: Optima has about an inch more than a C-class and about an inch less than an E-class. Toyota Camry has 38.9 inches of rear legroom, or 4.25 inches more than Optima, which provides perspective.  Though not the leader, Optima has a generous and comfortable rear seat.

And then there’s dynamics, the act of driving. Unlike the Hyundai Sonata we drove some time ago, which we damned with almost no praise, deservedly so, Optima handled and rode well. The electric power steering had that gumminess we seem to find in every KIA, but there was none of the listless, drunken wandering we found so horrendous in the Hyundai Sonata that is the Optima’s fraternal twin. KIA works with European engineering companies to help tune its vehicles, and it shows. This is, in effect, a Euro-spec chassis set-up. Optima Hybrid proved a pretty good car to drive, and only nitpickers like myself would find much fault. It’s not a Mazda6, or perhaps even a Camry, but there’s a sense of competency one rarely found in pats Korean vehicles. As a friend said, the KIA will age well, the Sonata will not. Optima tracks and corners and rides fairly well.

We would not recommend the current iteration of Hyundai/KIA hybrid drive. But based on everything else we found in the Optima Hybrid, we’d certainly recommend looking at the conventional gas-engined Optima when shopping family sedans. So long as the Optima has the aggressive lower body kit of the Hybrid model, the exterior design is strong, sculpted, and masculine. The interior is properly assembled, the ride and handling are very good, and only the steering is the slightest bit off, as we’ve found in virtually every KIA. We would recommend shopping the Optima if you’re also looking at Altima, Camry and Accord. We suspect that unless the KIA dealer offers a smoking deal, the Japanese will prove superior, but the gap is closing.

Can a car the approximate size and shape of a gnocchi pasta dumpling succeed on American roads filled with SUVs, CUVs and massive German luxury cars? The answer was clear after a week in the neighborhood and a 65-mile round trip to a Christmas party in Brentwood.

Antipasti: Design

Nuova 500 has a greater sense of humor than Frank Stephenson’s 2002 MINI, one of the best designs of the past quarter-century. Nuova 500 is a send-up, a riff on the Dante Giacosa Fifties original, but a well-played riff. Of the send-ups currently on sale—Camaro, Challenger, MINI, Neu Beetle—Nuova 500 most successfully captures the essence of the original.

At the front end especially, you see the nose of the Giacosa design, from which flows the larger contemporary car.

Typical of Italian design at its best, the designer and the reviewing executives knew when to stop, when to leave it alone and say, “It’s done.”

An over-used term, perhaps, but the limited chrome, badging, and the Euro-style sidemarkers are excellent jewelry on this simple, tautly drawn shape. The 500 logo inside the headlights is a thoughtful dab on the canvas, and the Seventies Italianate pattern of the 15-inch alloy wheels offers a complication of form.

At a grocery store parking lot, a classic Boomer with white goatee stepped out of his 997 Porsche cabrio, bee-lined for the car, said hello and started asking questions. He lives on the island and wants a little car for scooting around—many of our streets are narrow and tightly curved. Parking is at a premium here. After performing a once-over, he seemed intensely interested, asking if I had driven the automatic, what was the headroom like, the turning circle and so on. The shape is one of Nuova’s two best selling points.

Primi: Inside

Nuova’s front seats are tall, surprisingly so—you expect to be slung down low, hips just above the ground, enveloped as in a Cooper S. The high hip point appealed to the tall Lady Lawyer, making it easier to slide in wearing a dress, pearls, and heels. You almost feel like you’re in a blues club, in need of a drinks table. It’s a fashionista driving position designed to maximize legroom and make it easier to hop in and out.

The headrests are giant molded rubber hockey pucks, the sort of low-cost item you expect in an Italian car, but their inventiveness provokes a smile, like so much about the car. Headroom is more than adequate, the greenhouse airy, though Lady Lawyer wished for even more headroom—at five eleven, she’s not a citizen of Lilliput. Important in an age of stout roof pillars engineered to meet Draconian rollover standards, you have a good view to the rear three-quarters, though it’s sometimes startling to turn and find the giant chromed bumper of a Super Duty or a Ram so close by.

Opened, the switchblade key is a bit longer than a Pez dispenser. Because the ignition switch is positioned too close to the dash panel, you cannot wrap your hand around the key, but instead must twist the fob with fingertips and thumb at full extension. Nuova 500 would do well with a smart key and push button start. The bulky US-market fob is one of those idiosyncrasies that either endears or annoys.

Just like in the 2002 MINI, Nuova 500’s dash is not wide: diminutive, chubby, a low, smooth arc from side mirror to side mirror. You immediately know you’re not in a full-size vehicle for people who think like grownups.

Our Nuova had the optional Tom-Tom navigation, which sits in a small stand atop the dash. Why did Fiat offer what amounts to an aftermarket solution? This is a Euro-market car adapted to the US, and the dash “mail slot” for the audio head unit is not Double-DIN, not big enough to accept the sort of sophisticated head units now commonly sold in the US. Until Nuova 500 is re-engineered with a deeper, taller dash, with a deeper audio slot where the center stack and dashboard meet, you won’t find a 7-inch LCD navi screen to rival MINIConnected, a Scion iQ navi system, or even Hyundai Veloster’s standard LCD screen, for that matter.

Instead, you have a slender old-style head unit that blends with the pebbled black plastic of the upper dash, its oval shape mirrored by the ventilation control panel below. It fits the car’s character, it’s feel very much late Sixties or early Seventies. Nuova’s audio controls are light to the touch, lacking the precision feel of a better Japanese head unit, or any MINI audio unit. Fiat includes standard “Blue & Me,” Chrysler-Fiat’s Bluetooth system. It’s no different than the stopgap Bluetooth systems every manufacturer has offered for the past few years. So Nuova can interface with smartphones, but it’s a simple car for squirting around city streets, snaking into parking spots, enjoying the act of driving rather than obsessing on connectivity and gadgets.

Scaled to fit the narrow dash, the primary gauges are built in concentric circles in a single pod, speedo running the outer ring, tach indicator rising and falling on the left-hand side of the inner ring, minor indicators and trip computer in the center. Nuova 500 is not particularly quick or difficult to drive, so ignore the gauges, listen to the engine, and drive with style, shifting up a gear when the engine gets too raucous.

In typical Italian fashion, the shifter grows out of the center stack, not down low on the floor. A tall shifter, it’s topped off with a chromed ball any hot rodder would appreciate.

The rear seats are roomy enough for median height adults to manage a quick run to a local ristorante or movie theater. Nuova 500 is about a foot and a half longer than a Scion iQ, and much of that extra length went into the rear seats and cargo area. Compared to a smart ForTwo, Nuova is a limo.

Secondi: Driving

Which brings us to secondi, main course. Here Nuova delivers a driving experience different from any other sub- or micro-compact. Beyond design, this is why you buy Nuova: an Italian driving experience.

On our journey to a Christmas party in Brentwood, SUVs towered above us, and we were thankful for the bright yellow paint announcing our presence to typically oblivious Southern California drivers.

We’re glad the Italians chose not to mount oversized wheels and tires, as is currently the fashion. With such a short wheelbase, bigger, heavier wheels and tires would have made Nuova’s ride miserable. Instead, it’s surprisingly light on its feet, absorbing jounce and bumps well enough. Even over horrendous LA freeways, we never had a truly harsh blow to the tailbone, as you can get in severely sprung performance cars.

Merging into traffic required everything the little engine could muster. As one expects from a European car of any size, the Fiat settles in at 80 to 85 mph, humming along happily. Pinch the control button into cruise and Nuova bounds along. On the rare smooth section of highway between the beach and Brentwood, Nuova proved surprisingly quiet and civilized, though no one will compare interior sound with a luxury car. A 400-mile drive from LA to San Francisco would grow tiresome, though could be seen as an adventure when driving to a dorm room from mom’s house.

Nuova 500’s A-pillars are fairly upright and offer a good view out, with relatively small side mirrors attached to the door; they generate wind ruffle, but are much quieter than you’d expect.

Nuova’s shift action is both loose and notchy at the same time, yet I never missed a shift, never found myself guessing—the manual gearbox in our test car was accurate. Also, with so little weight to push around, and so little power, Nuova’s five-speed gearbox is up to the task.

Like cars from 25 or 30 years ago, if you force a shift hoping to extract greater acceleration, you’ll be rewarded with barked gear teeth. The gearbox clearly does not have the two- and three-cone synchros we expect from the best Japanese products

The upside? As with so many Italian cultural idiosyncrasies, this one also serves a useful purpose: the limitations of the gearbox force you into a sensible pace shifting gears, and oddly enough that rhythm works beautifully with the engine’s character. Shift a touch more slowly to go faster. Patience. Nuova’s design and engineering faults can force you to adapt, and learn how to enjoy yourself.

Though buzzy at idle and underway, Fiat’s 1.4-liter four-cylinder has a fun character. It’s lively and willing. With only 101 horsepower on tap, you need to work the shifter all the time, but that’s part of the fun. Passing on the boulevard is an ideal audition for the skills of a young race driver: you have to work the engine, shifter, and pedals with finest craft and skill just to keep pace.

In this way, Nuova reminded me of Kei-Jidosha cars like the Honda Beat. Powered by a 660cc engine mounted midships, you had to flog the Beat’s motor and gearbox for all they were worth to keep up with traffic, rarely passing other cars unless a lot of speed was carried. Nuova 500 is much the same way.

Like other micro-subcompacts, Nuova requires premium fuel to get the full claimed horsepower. Without premium fuel, Nuova’s engine ECU retards timing slightly, losing a few horsepower.

In Brentwood, we parked where no other car but a Scion iQ or smart could have fit, in the 14 feet between two driveways. Instead of parking a block or more away, we were a short saunter from the front doors of the party. Everyone in attendance wanted to know about the car. When told that it’s greater than the sum of its parts, one lady said that was very much the conclusion she read in the New York Times review.

Nuova’s engine is too small to serve in a five-door “Multipla” microvan, which is the next logical step for the platform. This car stretched a bit and clothed in a funky Italian van design would be a perfect rainy day or date-night car for a Ducati owner.

Nuova is a bit like a Ducati motorcycle: it’s not the technological leader, not the most sophisticated, but the important parts work beautifully.

Steering is good enough that I had to remind myself to think about it and take notes. It’s not without flaw—nothing seems to be these days—but the steering is well calibrated and in sync with the engine, shifter, suspension tuning, and the action of all the pedals. It’s sharp enough off-center that a hiccup can bring a lane change.

Transitional handling, moving from left to right to left in quick sequence, is less satisfying because Nuova is so short. You have to pause for a moment to let the suspension settle before completing that left-right-left series of corners. We could figure out the suspension around town and on fast freeway ramps, and a favorite little-known local canyon.

Nuova has enough brake for a car that weighs just a bit over 2,300 pounds, with discs at every corner: 10.1-inch at the front, 9.4-inch at the rear.

Is there any bad news? Not really. OK, it’s short and tends to bound from ripple to bump to crack in the road, and it changes direction suddenly if you’re not mindful of the steering, but that would be YOUR fault, not the car’s.

Dolci: Conclusion

A fully loaded Nuova is over $25,000, and not a good buy. La Dolce Vita is discovered in the $17-18,000 Sport trim level we tested. The Italians got the steering, handling, engine, and pedals right, something so few carmakers seem capable of doing. Best of all, with only 101 horsepower, you can drive the car hard, working it like a race car without going that much faster than traffic. A perfect way to tune up your skills without losing a driver’s license.

It’s not an engineering or quality equal of a MINI or iQ, but it has something many cars are missing: a witty sense of humor, style, and that ability to engage, to provoke a smile on even the worst of days.

Is it flawed? You bet, and we could rattle off a list of issues to be addressed in the next evolution of the car. The key fob and the audio head unit mentioned above are just two of many such points. But Nuova is far greater than the sum of its parts, a truly novel experience like no other car sold in the US.

Prime Numbers

• Engine: Gasoline 1.4-liter, four-cylinder with Multiair valve actuation
• Horsepower: 101 @ 6,500 rpm
• Torque: 98 @ 4,000 rpm
• Drivetrain: Front-wheel drive with five-speed manual; available six-speed automatic
• Suspension, F/R: MacPherson struts; torsion beam
• Length: 139.6 in.
• Width: 64.1 in.
• Height: 59.8 in.
• Wheelbase: 90.6 in.
• Weight: 2,363 lbs.

Alternatives To Consider

• MINI Cooper Hardtop. More expensive, a more upscale image, BMW build quality. Excellent BMW-engineered engine and dynamics. But the Germans who resketched Frank Stephenson’s virtually flawless 2002 Cooper body created a MINI 2.0 that’s chunkier, bulkier, and boxier, though admittedly the shape was changed to help meet European pedestrian safety regulations. MINI lost a bit of its indescribably charming sheen, a charm Nuova 500 has in depth. But end of day, the MINI is the better built and superior car in virtually every way. It costs five or six grand more.
• Scion iQ. Better built, a completely 21^st Century design, roomy front seats in a very wide cabin, tiny rear seats, a smooth, quiet engine. And of course the CVT that most “enthusiast” journalists complain about. Scion could have adopted a CVT with six or seven preset ratios and a sequential shifter, which would have provided a bit more involvement for the press corps, though buyers probably wouldn’t care. iQ is not meant to be the foundation of a division, as the Nuova 500 is, but instead is carefully planned to fill a micro niche in the marketplace.
• Mazda MX-5 Miata. Not really a competitor in design, purpose or price, but a competitor in the sense it’s a car meant to be fun, and likely appeals to much the same sort of buyer, a mix of women, and old Boomers who fondly remember Sixties sports cars. Nuova is more practical, oddly enough, with greater cargo space.
• Smart ForTwo. Well, we are forced to mention this pathetic effort. One of our neighbors has one and he fits the profile: aged Boomer wanting to seem cool, like he’s leading society in a new Green direction. In the end, it’s a funky little car with a funky gearbox and odd handling. OK, we have mentioned it. Done.
• Mazda2. Like Nuova 500, a fun car that has not caught fire in the marketplace. It’s less costly and more amusing than its cousin, the Ford Fiesta.
• Toyota Yaris three-door LE. “Enthusiast” journalists love to urinate on this car, calling it bland. But in the end, it provides what most such buyers want, with excellent quality. It also has a well-sorted chassis. And no shortage of airbags.

A lawyer friend sent the link below, and it simply validates our criticisms of the Volt as a lab experiment that was rushed too quickly into market. It also validates our personal views about the actions of the government, particularly under Obama. Both the Volt and the GM “bankruptcy” are shameful wastes of taxpayer money.

Read it here. Massive subsidies for the Chevy Volt. If any percentage of this report holds up under scrutiny, heads should roll.

When news broke a few weeks ago about the Volt batteries being punctured in NHTSA tests, I was amazed to see Bob Lutz on CNBC. He was introduced as the former Vice-Chairman of GM, a CNBC contributor, and a current consultant to GM. I wonder which hat he was wearing for the interview.

Several guys I know who work in product PR and government affairs thought GM’s response was horribly flawed. First, Lutz drove the bus over LG, the Korean company that developed the batteries. Nice, blame those foreigners.

Next, and perhaps most critically, GM did not clearly point out that the car did NOT burst into flames at the time the batteries were punctured in the test. That happened later. That is a critical point. So you are not going to be awash in flames when a Chevy Tahoe rams into your side.

The biggest problem with Volt? It’s a lab experiment, and was forced into the market too early. The concept is brilliant, entirely sound. But GM put the powertrain into a Cruze platform that is NOT engineered specifically for the purpose. You don’t hear about Priuses–er, Prii–having this problem, do you? That’s because the fundamentals are engineered to suit the vehicle, with the batteries carried midships.Basing Volt on Cruze bits and pieces is valid, for suspension, firewall, and the like. But the pressed pieces forming the body structure, particularly around vulnerable spots like the batteries, should have been unique to Volt.

The Volt’s assisted electric powertrain concept will likely find its greatest flowering at BMW, where a small-displacement gas engine will drive a big alternator to recharge the batteries. And BMW will take the needed time to develop the car properly.We pointed this out in our review, and oddly enough a couple of weeks later BMW announced this concept with a consumer products publication.

That the Volt has received such a horrendous amount of government subsidy is disgraceful. But then again, many of us think GM should have been shoved quickly through a structured bankruptcy, without Obama redistributing ownership to the unions, robbing the bondholders, and then letting bankers who are political allies have control of the IPO, effectively allowing them to redistribute to their favored clients. The Obama Administration’s handling of the GM affair has been disgraceful, and in many ways illegal. That the Volt is a design, engineering and financial failure is much deserved.

Unless real leadership is put in place at GM, it’s only a matter of time before they’re back down the drain. They’re making money because the taxpayers have relieved them of debt. Cruze sales have cavitated. I wonder how many Cruze were sold to GM legacy buyers, friends, family, A-planners. How many were sold to real consumers living outside the Midwest?

GM is in need of significant surgery. Put in an engineering executive with real capability, let him shake the organization, and you’ll have a company worth keeping around.

Over a decade ago, VW New Beetle brought a sudden end to the boring, bar-of-soap exterior design of the Eighties and much of the Nineties. Suddenly, cars could be fun again, cars could have…shape. Long in tooth, New Beetle is replaced this year by what we call Neu Beetle, combining an aggressive exterior design with a far more sporting but also conventional interior space. We think it will attract a new generation of much the same sort of buyers who loved the New Beetle in the early years of the past decade. The expected Neu Beetle convertible should prove popular with the expected buyers. Neu Beetle’s design has a sense of humor, and it’s a highly competent car.

Prime Numbers

• Engine: Gasoline 2.0-liter, DOHC four-cylinder turbo
• Horsepower: 200 @ 5,100-6,000 rpm
• Torque: 207 @ 1,700-5,000 rpm
• Drivetrain: Front-wheel drive with available 6-speed DSG automatic
• Suspension, F/R: MacPherson struts; Coil springs, independent multi-link, anti-roll bar
• Length: 168.4 in.
• Width: 71.2 in.
• Height: 58.5 in.
• Wheelbase: 99.9 in.
• Weight: 3,042 lbs.

Alternatives To Consider

• MINI Cooper S, Hardtop and Coupe. Equally priced, a more upscale image, more sporting. Excellent BMW-engineered turbo engine and dynamics. But the Germans who resketched Frank Stephenson’s virtually flawless 2002 Cooper body created a MINI 2.0 that’s chunkier, bulkier, and boxier, though admittedly the shape was changed to help meet European pedestrian safety regulations. MINI lost a bit of its indescribably charming sheen. MINI Coupe adds a wild design component that offsets the boxier fenderlines, and is likely the best comparison with the Neu Beetle Turbo.
• Fiat 500. Currently a popular item in our beach community. Women love it, along with Baby Boomers males. A unique design piece, acceptable build quality, a lively enough spirit for a commuter car, and a less expensive option to the more robust MINI Cooper. Fiat 500 makes best sense when bought in lower trim levels, keeping the price well below $20,000. A loaded 500 Lounge goes up against Neu Beetle Turbo in price, and might not come off well in the comparison—Neu Beetle has nearly twice the power, and is capable of long-range touring. So not an entirely apples-to-apples comparison, but with niche design-y cars, one must cast about. Some of the women shopping Neu Beetle might also be looking at the Mazda Miata.

Damning with Faint Praise

Praise

• Neu Beetle has the best electric power steering we’ve yet experienced in a modestly priced car. Excellent weight, “feel,” gain, and that sense it’s actually connected to something involving the suspension.
• Koreans and some Japanese makers are advised to benchmark VW’s steering system.
• A fine Geo Ham-like evolution of a design that was shocking for its humor, surface forms, and child’s toy sensibilities, but in need of replacement after more than a decade.
• Side view, Neu Beetle’s form is steeply raked, enormous pontoon front fenders lunging, rear roof swelling upwards out of the massive rear fenders.
• A more practical windscreen, more upright, not so distant from the driver, but still part of an airy passenger cabin.
• No more bud vase.
• Glovebox and central dash controls hearken to original Beetle’s simple dash.
• VW gasoline turbo four is among the best small-displacement engines available, anywhere.
• Engine is smooth, powerful, torquey.
• Volkswagen DSG dual-clutch transmission is the finest automatic currently made for small-displacement cars.
• In semi-auto mode, upshifts are beautiful, especially under heavy throttle. ECU is programmed to put the slightest pause between gears, simulating the feel of a manual transmission being shifted by a skilled driver.
• Beetle is surprisingly quick off the line, and threads traffic at 70-80 mph with great style, thanks to fine steering and turbo power. You can pass at will, and Neu Beetle can cruise at 90-100 mph on open highway.
• Coming down our mountain test loop, Neu Beetle allows tail-out sliding in tight corners, though you’re scrubbing off speed while exploring this sort of car control.
• Fender-branded speaker system delivers excellent sound reproduction, plus the Fender logo is iconic, like a 6 oz. Coca-Cola bottle.
• Fender audio package should appeal to audiophiles, and aged Boomers.
• Passenger-side front seat tilts and slides forward for walk-through convenience to back seat.
• Back seat is more useful and comfortable than you might imagine.
• Cargo space and rear hatch more practical and useful than in New Beetle.
• Rear passenger seats fold nearly flat, though when folded the seatbacks sit a few inches higher than the cargo floor.
• Interior materials are well constructed, a mix of hard materials.
• Delivered 19.5 mpg, and most of those miles were on our 100-mile test loop, including about 60 miles over mountain roads moving quickly. So not as good as, say, a VW Diesel or a Chevy Cruze 1.4-liter Turbo.
• A Neu Beetle Turbo can be had for just under $25,000. Add navigation, sunroof, Fender speakers and the kitchen sink and you’re at $30,000+, which is not a spectacular deal, though an awfully nice car that compares well enough with similarly priced vehicles like MINI Cooper S Coupe.
• This is a viable everyday car, and well suited to the 500-mile road trips common to Southern Californians (LA to Vegas, Mammoth, San Francisco, Napa, etc).

Damnation

• Fully loaded, our test car was just under $30,000. That’s a lot, though when viewed as an alternative to a MINI Cooper S or Cooper S Coupe, or a Fiat 500 Abarth, actually not so bad.
• Perhaps still wearing the market image of the New Beetle, and thus most likely still consigned to fashionable women with a sense of humor and whimsical style, plus Baby Boomers who want a Love Bug.
• Raked stance of Neu Beetle requires acclimation: it’s just as extreme as the New Beetle, in a different way.
• Turbo engine requires premium fuel.
• Wish it had a Diesel with a DSG transmission.

NEU BEETLE evolves the impish forms of the late Nineties New Beetle into a more aggressive shape, in hopes of drawing buyers beyond the established clientele of fashion-conscious women and Boomer males. Based on the latest VW engineering, Neu Beetle Turbo has a touch of sporting flair and is an excellent highway touring car. At the least it should reinvigorate sales with the known customer base and serve as an image car for VW.

Engine, Transmission, Drivetrain

VW’s gasoline 2.0-liter turbo four is among the best small-displacement engines available, anywhere. Debuting in the GTI several years ago, variations now serve throughout the VW range. Smooth, powerful, and torquey, it’s a sterling example of what can be done with a well-calibrated turbo and carefully scripted electronic engine controls (ECU). If you want a Neu Beetle, this is the engine to buy.

VW’s DSG dual-clutch transmission is the finest and certainly the most sophisticated automatic available for a small-displacement engine, particularly a turbo (turbos and automatics go well together). However, the Japanese and Koreans now offer more conventional and thus less expensive automatics that are exceptionally smooth, quiet and efficient, so DSG’s advantages are less pronounced

In semi-auto mode, fingertips working the paddleshifters, upshifts are beautiful. ECU connecting the engine and gearbox is programmed to put the slightest pause between gears, matching revs and gear ratio, simulating the feeling of a manual transmission being shifted by a skilled driver. You won’t get that kind of driving pleasure out of a conventional automatic transaxle. The paddleshifters have a damped, precision feel and movement. The paddles rotate with the wheel.

Thanks to the slick efficiency of the gearbox and nicely calibrated turbo, acceleration is surprisingly quick off the line. With its turbo-infused fat range of horsepower—200 @ 5,100-6,000 rpm—Neu Beetle threads traffic at 70-80 mph with style, slipping past slower cars readily. Neu Beetle is nearly ideal for the LA-to-Vegas Friday afternoon run. At risk to license, one could comfortably cruise all day at 100 mph.

Over our 100-mile test loop, including about 60 miles on mountain roads moving very quickly, Neu Beetle delivered 19.5 mpg. Not as good as, say, a VW Jetta Sportwagen Diesel flogged over the same run. But the actual performance as well as the sensations are worth the price, and very different in character to the VW Diesel. Driven in a reasonable manner that can ensure continued possession of a driver license, Neu Beetle delivers about 25 mpg.

Downsides? Neu Beetle’s turbo engine requires premium fuel. We wonder if VW’s very torquey and more fuel-efficient TDI Diesel would serve well in a boutique car like this. More importantly, VW would be best served developing a new base engine, replacing the 2.5-liter, an initiative that is currently underway. VW is so adept at developing new engines that the 2.5 should be gone soon enough.

Interior, Ergonomics

If the exterior is now more rakish, then the interior is far more conventional, in the German sense. Gone is the dashtop broad and deep enough to serve as a picnic table. Gone is the high-arching roofline with more headroom than a John Deere wheat-harvesting combine. Instead, Neu Beetle has a handsome Germanic interior and an utterly logical dash. Neu Beetle’s interior has almost the feeling of a sports car cockpit. A very different sensibility compared to the New Beetle’s exaggerated, humorous forms and sense of whimsy.

The true test? Within a short while, you forget you’re driving around in a car with soap-bubble fenders, and wonder why people are pulling up alongside to stare at you. Neu Beetle’s interior is clean, straightforward, logical and handsome.

As we’ve stated about all recent VWs coming through our test fleet, the driving position is typically German, meaning ideal. The Germans always put the person in the correct driving position, and then build the car around. I’m six three and was entirely comfortable behind the wheel, yet a pixie female was equally happy with the driving position.

Neu Beetle has a tilt-telescope steering column, with a tremendous range of adjustment. The leather-trimmed seats are highly supportive and well made. The rear seats are more useful than one might expect, and with a walkthrough front passenger seat, it’s fairly easy to clamber back there.

Gauges are classic white-on-black dials, big, round and easy to read. Feel and action of the controls and switchgear is what you’d expect from a German car—smooth, precise, entirely logical. And no bud vase.

A nice touch? The upper glovebox opens with a simple lever that’s a nod to the ancient Beetle past: press the dimple, the blade handle moves outward, hook your fingers and the glovebox opens. We’d add a spring to the handle to damp its motion, but it’s a nice design touch that makes opening the glovebox a special occasion. There’s also a lower glovebox and an ample center storage bin. Plenty of space for life’s odds and ends.

The faux carbon-fiber dash and piano black accents of our top-line Neu Beetle were worth the cost if you’re comparing against a MINI Cooper S. They make the interior special, unlike any other car.

Our loaded-to-the-gills Neu Beetle had navigation, sunroof and the optional audio system, with Fender speakers. Fender’s logo is iconic, a wonderful graphic accent inside the car. If cost is no object and you are shopping Neu Beetle against the equally pricy MINI Cooper S or perhaps the upcoming Fiat Abarth, then the expensive options make sense, including the Fender system. The sub-woofer takes up a fair amount of cargo space, about the size of two shoeboxes, but sound reproduction is excellent.

Compared to New Beetle, the Neu Beetle has a much more practical cargo space, capable of swallowing large boxes. We have one ergonomic criticism: VW uses a GM-style cruise control, placing small buttons on the end of a left-hand multi-function stalk.

Exterior Design, Body Construction

The heart of the matter: style. Not so much design, but style.

In hopes of attracting male buyers, VW developed a more aggressive interpretation of the Beetle. We see Geo Ham influences, with pontoon fenders that could have served on a Talbot or Delahaye city car. Bubble fenders. Viewed from the side, Neu Beetle’s form is steeply raked, enormous front fenders lunging. The rear fenders are the base from which the roofline swells upwards and forward, emulating a cresting wave. Sitting still, the design appears to be moving forward.

A point of criticism: The side glass is frameless, using the German-style automated “tuck” once the door is shut. Very nice. But there is a gap between the door’s side glass and the glass panel over the rear of the cockpit. We suspect this is the cause of the minor wind ruffle at 60-70 mph that becomes more pronounced when cruising at higher speeds. The solution might be as simple as a raised rib in the rubber gasket that sits between the two glass panels. Will most buyers care or notice? Probably not, but we’d guess a minor change to the shape of the rubber gasket between the glass panels might quell the ruffling.

I can’t wait for a crazy German tuner house to build a one-off Neu Beetle with a Porsche 911 GT3 underneath. See video below.

Steering, Suspension, Brakes

VW has the best electric power steering of any mass-market car we’ve driven lately. Not gummy, not woolly, not cursed with strange steps in the gain as we find in many Asian and Detroit vehicles. Instead, it feels like good old-fashioned hydraulic power-assisted steering, making the Neu Beetle a joy to steer, even around a parking lot.

Neu Beetle has basically the same suspension components as Jetta and GTI, with slightly softer tuning. On our mountain run, Neu Beetle’s preferred cornering posture was understeer, as it runs wide in hopes of slowing you down, a sensible approach for a car often purchased by folks who are not driving enthusiasts, but fashionistas. To avoid running wide with understeer, we upset the chassis and threw it into corners, effectively tightening up the cornering line, though it can get a bit messy.

Like GTIs of the past 4-5 years, Neu Beetle is a great learner’s car, as it will understeer or give ample warning that you’re going too hot.

Coming down our mountain test loop, Neu Beetle allowed tail-out sliding in tighter corners, though you’re scrubbing off speed while exploring this sort of car control. Again, perfect for a learner, or for those with limited skills who need lots of warning when they get carried away. We found these handling traits entirely amusing.

Neu Beetle steering, ride and cornering are executed to a high level, very well sorted with deliberately engineered outcomes, exactly what we expect from Germans. Suspension compliance, meaning a comfortable ride, is appropriate for the expected customer: the ride is comfortable and the car does not beat you up, yet it feels alive and engaged. As a primary car, Neu Beetle with automatic can serve for commuting, around-town driving, and that occasional weekend foray to someplace nice.  For a single person or a couple, it’s perfectly suited as a primary vehicle.

Conclusion

Fully loaded, our test car was a few dollars short of $30,000. When viewed as an alternative to a nicely turned out MINI Cooper S hardtop or Coupe, or a Fiat 500 Abarth, Neu Beetle Turbo is a fair value.

A base Neu Beetle Turbo is about $25,000, which is a very good value for such a thoroughly sorted-out coupe. We think the Turbo model is the best buy, in any of the three trim levels.

Perhaps still wearing the market image of last decade’s New Beetle, the Neu Beetle is thus most likely consigned to fashionable women, plus Boomers males with nostalgia for the Summer of Love. First-year sales will tell if the Neu Beetle will attract younger male buyers.