First Drive: SEAT Leon Cupra

Draw up a list of the top hot-hatches in the world. The SEAT Leon Cupra may not be on it – although it might be – but the Volkswagen GTI will most definitely. At least it should, because the GTI is a performance icon, forged over decades of performance tempered with versatility and accessibility. And the current-generation GTI certainly lives up to the legend, burning rubber with the best Germany has to offer. But if this article is about the SEAT Leon Cupra, then why are we talking about the Volkswagen GTI? What do they have in common? Well, almost everything. Almost.

[ Via: SEAT Autoblog ]
[ Tag: autoblog drives seat cupra, AutoblogDrivesSeatCupra, featured, first drive, first drive seat leon cupra, FirstDrive, FirstDriveSeatLeonCupra, seat, seat leon, seat leon cupra, SeatLeon, SeatLeonCupra ]

First Drive: 2009 Volkswagen Jetta Sportwagen

Click the Jetta Sportwagen for a high-res gallery
While we were in Virginia attending the inaugural race of the Jetta TDI cup series, Volkswagen provided us hacks with a some new Jetta Sportwagens with which to make the 45 minute morning and evening commute between the Berry Hill Inn and the race track. Like the last generation Jetta Wagon, the new Sportwagen is branded as a Jetta in North America because Jetta is Volkswagen's top-selling model here. The rest of the world, however, knows this estate-bodied Volkswagen as the Golf Variant. No matter, because the Golf/Rabbit and Jetta share all their important hardware and are, for all intents and purposes, the same car.

In typical fashion, the new Sportwagen has grown since the previous model was retired and is now nearly as big as the last-gen Passat wagon. My first impression upon climbing into the Sportwagen was how it felt nearly as roomy as the 2000 Passat wagon that resides in half of my garage at home. VW provided an assortment of cars with both 5-speed three-pedal and 6-speed two-pedal transmission arrangements. Unfortunately, all were paired with the base 2.5L inline five-cylinder engine. Check out my impressions of the new Jetta Sportwagen after the jump.


[ Via: Autoblog (Volkswagen) ]
[ Tag: 2009 jetta, 2009Jetta, featured, first drive, FirstDrive, jetta, sportwagen, vw jetta, vw jetta sportwagen, vw jetta tdi, vw-jetta, vw-jetta-sportwagen-..., VwJetta, VwJettaSportwagen, VwJettaTdi ]