Resistance to Change
When I bought my first car nearly eight years ago, it was a rear-wheel-drive car with a manual transmission. Shortly after buying it, I said I would never own a car that wasn’t a rear-wheel-drive car with a real (i.e., with a third pedal) manual transmission. A little less than four years, an impromptu front brake job (pads and rotors) in an Advance Auto Parts parking lot, and a tie-rod end failure (leaving each of the front wheels pointed in opposite directions) later, I leased a Subaru Impreza with all-wheel-drive (though it was still stick). And now, a little less than four years later, I’m once again thinking of breaking the rules I established when I was a stupid and naïve 16-year-old. Some may say the only thing that’s changed in that description is the age.
This weekend, I took a drive to our local Volkswagen dealer, where I had my first experience with the GTI. This is a car that has gathered a fanatical group of owners since it first arrived on our shores in 1983, which I never understood, until I took an example for a test drive. The seats are quite possibly the most comfortable car seats I’ve ever been in, and the steering wheel belongs in all cars with sporting pretensions. Everything about the car felt more like a $50,000 car than the $27,000 or so that it’s stickered at. And the more I drove it, the more I liked it, despite moving even further away from my RWD “ideals”. The GTI is truly a phenomenal car for the price, one that I never thought I’d remotely like just four short years ago.
And yet, here I am, pretty confident that a GTI will be sitting in my driveway in a few months, barring a change in heart regarding the Hyundai Genesis Coupe, or the arrival of the infamous Toyobaru. It’s proof that even the most stubborn of people (myself) are susceptible to change, under the right conditions, anyway. But, to paraphrase Paul Simon, don’t take my third pedal away…
