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Edit: Thanks to several readers for pointing out several details that prove this Cayenne is a Turbo, but not a Turbo S. Only 450 horsepower, then!
It’s been a few weeks since my last 10K Friday entry, and I wanted to get something together for the impending snow New England is once again expecting. To remind us of the terms of the comparison, I’m looking for themed cars around $10,000 (give or take, we’ll see later). I try to generally find the newest cars possible, figuring that for many these will be a daily driver. In this case, I was looking for performance all-wheel drive cars that offered year round practicality with a touch of sport. So lining up the best I could find from Volkswagen, Audi, Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Porsche gives us an interesting amount of diversity for your hard-earned dollars. Today we have two sedans, a hatchback, a wagon and a S.U.V. to contemplated; which is the winner?
It’s been a while since I’ve fantasized about the R32. For a long time, it was my dream car, packing AWD with a sweet (and sweeter sounding) VR6 in the attractive (to me) Mk4 Golf package. They sound great and are very capable, but have had enough mechanical issues to have some detractors. I’ll continue dreaming though, thinking of the VR6’s terrifying growl, the 4Motion’s capability, and the hatchback sensibility. For a long time they were hovering around $20k, and you might still pay that much if you find a cherry low-mileage example, but today’s has covered 117k miles and is thus an extremely reasonable $13k.
Being a fan of older Audis – and owning one – I’ve followed with much excitement the development of a small California-based tuning firm called 034 Motorsports. 034 – a reference to the 5-cylinder Audi motor part numbers – has taken a niche community and turned it into a flowering business. Initially starting with turbo modifications to the older 5 cylinder cars, the folks that make up the brain trust at 034 created some legendary Audis – most notable, the 1,000 horsepower turbocharged 80 quattro. But the reality is that these now 25 year old cars make up a very small percentage of the tuning market, so 034 turned to the much more popular A4 and Volkswagen GTi crowds, creating two stunning cars in the process. Less spectacular but stunningly effective was the A4 Time Attack car which went through several different engine configurations; but much more notable and impressive is what 034 attempted next; mid-mounting a V6 turbo into a 2001 GTi. The results are nothing short of stunning:
The Rallye Golf posted by Paul is one of my favorite Euro-only unicorns. It’s one of those perfect combinations that rarely seem to come together:…
I’ve been pretty critical lately of the limited run Golf and GTi models. It’s not for their performance, build quality or weight; the typical complaint…
