Seeking A Richer Inner Life

VW’s Jetta GLI 35th Anniversary Edition is an instrument of joy in need of a better instrument panel.

- Tony Quiroga

I LOVE THE VOLKSWAGEN GTI. I’ve owned three of them. Last year alone, my sister became a GTI owner and my friend Rudy bought one because he asked me for a recommendation, and unlike everyone else in my life, he actually listened. No one ever listens. Anyway, the GTI is an easy car to recommend because it never disappoints. It is the singularly perfect balance of practicality, performance, refinement, and price. That’s why it has won 16 10Best crowns, and that’s why a C/D staffer bought our last long-term GTI at the end of its service. And that one’s not the only GTI in our office parking lot.

But we were initially less enthusiastic about the GTI’s mechanical twin, the Jetta GLI, even if we must admit that our ambivalence revolves around the superfi cial. It isn’t as good-looking, inside or out, as the GTI. Starting with the last Jetta and continuing in the new generation, Volkswagen pulled copper out of the Jetta’s take-a-penny-leave-a penny dish until it was left with a dollar-store version of the Golf.

But if you’ve ever bought sunglasses for a buck, you know that dollar stores are great for bargains. The 2019 Jetta GLI is a bit of that. Equipped with the same 228-hp inline-four as the GTI, the GLI starts at $26,890, or $1600 less than its hatchback brother. Think of that savings as an apology for the molded-in stitching on the instrument panel, the hard and shiny plastic on the doors, and a tacky gauge cluster that even pre-bankruptcy GM might have rejected.