A Few Days With a VW UP
While the USA will not see the VW UP, I found it to be a good little car, with
a few compromises. The build quality was good as well as the handling. It is meant to be VW's smallest
and cheapest car. With a small
1.2L gas engine, acceleration was only bearable. Gas mileage was great and the front seats were
roomy enough for a 6 foot tall guy.
The main problem with a small engine
in Germany was Autobahn performance. If you want to go 100 MPH, which isn't
absolutely necessary, you have to rev the engine to over 5000 RPM. Maybe I'm old school,
but I'm not comfortable driving for long stretches at over 5000 RPM. As you can see from the picture on the right,
I was driving 150km/hr, which is about 95 mph, and RPM's were over 4000 RPM. It's really not designed for high speed
cruising.
Another surprise was the manual transmission. I was shocked to see where the reverse gear was located.
I've driven a lot of VW's and have never seen reverse under the 5th gear! We'll see if this is a trend for
all new VW's.
I wish VW would bring all of their products to the USA. A diesel UP that would get 70 MPG would confound the
hybrid owners. A diesel minivan would give consumers that option to drive a van that gets 30 MPG. The VW Up
would sell well in the USA, because it is a quality vehicle that US consumers expect from VW. With speed limits
at 65-75 MPH in most states, the main limitation of the VW UP would never be noticed.
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