New car–Volkswagen up!

Well, the big news of the week is that our new car arrived on Monday.  I have been excitedly waiting for the new fun-mobile to arrive and finally I can say goodbye to train commuting.  Of course, with new car, there must be photos.  Here is the first one of the car in front of the house (our other VW Caddy is visible behind)

 

 

The up! (VW includes lower case and punctuation whenever referring to it, but it somehow feels silly to me) is a new car introduced by VW this past December.  It is their latest attempt to enter the “city car” market that currently has competitors like the Smart, Peugeot 106, Honda Jazz (Fit in North America) or any other number of tiny economical cars.

 

We bought this as a second car to compliment the primary family-mover that is the Caddy.   It is tiny easy to drive and park and excellent on gas.  4.5 l/100km combined consumption (I think that’s about 58mpg for the imperials) 

 

 

Certainly not a luxurious car, but that is not really the point… it is comfortable and functional.  The cockpit is very roomy for such a small car, it is actually 15cm wider than that of the VW Polo, the next car up in the VW hierarchy.  Not much styling in the interior, lots of hard, simple plastic controls.  This actually appeals to my bland sensibilities.  I like nice robust and simple without any chrome.

 

 

We did get the very fancy “maps and more” on board computer thingy, but I think I will go into detail on another post on that.  It deserves a lot of attention on its own.

 

 

It has only been two days, but I am already reveling in the fact that I have the flexibility of a second car and I can leave my public transit commuting behind me.  I did quite enjoy riding the train, but I will not miss the experience of missed connections and 30 min waits on a rainy platform.

 

Some people asked if I will give the car a name.  Our past cars have just been referred to as “big auto”, “mini auto” and “the caddy.”  I am open to any suggestions of a good name for this new guy.