44 10BEST FOR 2020 PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARC URBANO ~ JANUARY 2020 ~ CAR AND DRIVER
The perennial 10Best-winning
Volkswagen Golf GTI is joined by
the new Jetta GLI this year.An emerging body of research suggests that
social media is driving people to have an
unhealthy obsession with attaining perfection.
Call it “compare and despair” for shor t. It’s based
on the sneaking suspicion that we never have it
quite as good as someone else, especially that one
friend on Instagram who always
seems to have the time and money
for something better.
But an undeniable perfection
has been available for some time
and for a surprisingly low sum
through your local Volkswagen
dealer. Spend as much as you
want—or as much as you can be
talked into. Either way, it has been
nearly impossible to beat the all-
around brilliance of the Volks-
wagen Golf GTI. Until now, by its
sibling, the Jetta GLI.These Vee-Dubs check every box. They are
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fast, and fun. And they look great with the eve-
ning sun shining through your blond locks as
you load in your perfectly sleepy toddlers after
a family picnic in the paddock. Which is to say,
they are social-media co-stars in the making.
It hasn’t always been this way. Well, the GLI
hasn’t. It has juked in and out of the GTI’s wake,
a MiG trying to maintain missile lock on Mav-
erick. It has shared the GTI’s engine and then
not. It has shared its interior and then not. For
2019, it is back, and the three-box largely mimics
the hatch, with an independent rear suspension
and the same 228-hp turbocharged inline-four
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it lacks the design and material quality of the
GTI’s. But the L measures up on the 10Best scale
because it starts $2350 below the T.
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these two so easy to love. They bring the same
verve to a crosstown jaunt as they
do to barreling into the braking
zone. Throwing a perfect heel
and toe to one of the world’s great
manual transmissions as you
rotate toward the apex and get
back on the gas is a greater reward
than 1000 Instagram likes. And
with roomy back seats and either
the capacious hold of the hatch-
back GTI or the cavernous trunk
of the GLI, there’s plenty of room
to take the rest of your now perfect
life wherever you go. —Jared GallStaying
Power