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New Volkswagen GTI Introduction A hidden amusement of aging is the repetition you start to witness in the world around you. Take the music industry, where creativity-challenged artists increasingly turn to the past, mangling timeless songs by adding lyrics, resampling with jarring guitars, or giving them hip-hop hackjobs. Most of the target audience has only been on the planet long enough to see fresh innovation. The words "Fiddler on the Roof" mean nothing to Gwen Stefani fans. Not much is different in the sport compact car scene - you wonder if today's kids know its roots. What, you think the Honda Civic Si and Dodge Neon SRT-4 were pioneers? Guess again, young man: the first to use a little car with little prices for big performance was Volkswagen, back in 1983. All modern rewrites since then may pack more engine and more tire, but at their cores rests the original GTI formula. Now somewhat forgotten among its newer peers, the GTI is nearing the end of its lifetime as an all-new Jetta hits showrooms, signaling a generation changeover. Because the new Golf and GTI are on the delayed-release plan, there's still time to give a familiar friend one last run. Volkswagens share a lot of parts - the GTI branched off the Golf, which itself was third in the Beetle/Jetta/Golf/Audi TT family of cars - and one piece that has become VW's staple is the corporate 1.8-liter turbo 4-cylinder. Rated at 180 horsepower in the GTI's case, my most relevant memory was of this engine attempting to apply Newton's second law to a 3,601-pound Passat 4MOTION, without much success and even less satisfaction. The engine is much more in character with the GTI. The two-stage feel of turbos is not to everyone's taste, but there's a big difference between adequate-or-fast (GTI) and adequate-or-asthmatic (Passat). If you can live with average grunt just off the line, you will be rewarded with the stellar mileage inherent to puny engines, such as the 30 MPG on my run (like nearly all turbo engines, this one's calibrated for premium fuel). The turbo is ready for your command by 1,900 RPM, and freeway passing power passes for adequate even in 5th. There's nothing that a 667-pound diet, ten extra horsepower, and manual transmission can't fix.