You could fit a road bicycle in back, among other things. Not to mention, I have always loved the utility of a hatchback. I drove a red one and was quickly taken in by the spunky personality of the car, which was like a happy puppy, and I was sold. And…better yet, they were running a 5-year 0.00% APR finance special which made it very affordable for us. And it meant that I could get my sisters Ford discount on it. They were sharing technology and platforms. Ford at that time had a controlling interest and long partnership with Mazda dating back the early 70’s. And a light bulb went on in my brain reminding me of the Ford-Mazda connection. Then across the street in the motor mall, I spied the new Mazda Protégé 5’s sitting in front of the joint Mazda-Subaru dealer. Perhaps a switch to the Ford Family? Maybe a Focus hatch or wagon? Whoa, wait, we stuck Adam in the back of the Grand Prix all the time, and it really wasn’t a big deal, now was it? Really? Long story short, I had to get her buy-in on a big-ticket purchase like this and I wasn’t going to get it, so I had to move on. The missus, however, did not want a 2 door, as it was more difficult to get our not quite 1-year old boy in and out in the car seat. And I was pleasantly surprised and excited to see they were just inside the outer limits of what we could afford…. C was not driving a manual, no way, no how. They were heavily discounted, lower trim level automatics, which was good because Mrs. One evening, I discovered that there were a couple of past model year GTI’s (2001 Mk4’s) sitting on the lot at the local VW dealer, in white and silver. It was winter time in late January 2002, a generally slow time in the car business especially here in the snow belt. Doing some high-level pricing on-line, I quickly realized that this was just a wee bit out of my price range. The Volkswagen Golf GTI was always one of my all-time favorite cars since it came out in 1983, and I decided to start there. A base Golf or Jetta was certainly affordable for us and made sense, but I always (and still do) coveted a hot hatch. Reciprocation or not, there was absolutely no way we could afford to buy or lease an Audi like an A-4. At this point in the early 2000’s, both brands were resurgent in the U.S., especially Audi. I liked my contacts there, was treated well, and I really wanted to reciprocate in some small way. Our company was doing a lot of business with VW/Audi at the time and I was on the account. GM was still in a of a product funk, pre-bankruptcy. Nothing there was really exciting me at all at that time with their product. Sure, I could do my predictable same-same and go right to a GM dealer like I always did. ![]() I was a bit perplexed in terms of which direction to go. ![]() Stinging from the sudden demise of my Grand Prix as referenced two COAL’s ago, it was now time to focus on the next vehicle.
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