NEW YORK — Mary Anne, my wife, called it the “age extractor, a car that makes you feel younger the moment you get into it.”
But she had to bring lots of stuff to New York for an Easter week celebration. There was no way that the front-wheel-drive Audi TT 2.0 coupe, although it has been stretched and widened a bit for 2008, could hold Mary Anne’s largess.
We turned over the keys to Ria Manglapus, my associate in vehicle evaluations.
Ria was ecstatic, as evidenced by her first text message about the TT.
“Hot and sexy car!” she wrote. She was getting favorable looks, especially from women drivers, some of whom thought the TT was “gorgeous.”
I laughed.
Ria has two growing boys. She carts them everywhere. “Hot and sexy” was about to collide with sons Bori and Q, who, like many teenage boys, put a premium on leg space and ease of entry and exit. So, I wasn’t surprised to get Ria’s next text message: “Q is having a hard time getting in and out of the back seat.”
And there you have it, the reason hot little coupes such as the TT are loved by many but bought by few. They are classic examples of the conflict between fantasy and reality, “me” cars in a life where “we” matters most, escapemobiles in a world strangled by traffic congestion.
Thus, the best way to enjoy the TT is alone. This has been true since the car’s inception in 1995, when it was mostly a reconfigured Volkswagen Golf with Porsche pretensions. It’s true now, when the vastly redesigned TT is riding on its own platform and imbued with a distinct Audi personality, evidenced by its wide-mouthed grille.
The TT is first and foremost a driver’s car — in this iteration equipped with a turbocharged two-liter, in-line four-cylinder, 200-horsepower engine, one that requires premium unleaded gasoline. It has four seats, but the rear seats are mere afterthoughts. At least one of the Manglapus brothers was bound to complain sitting back there.
The front passenger’s seat offers ample comfort. But it is best left unfilled. As I said, the TT is a driver’s car, a road nut’s sanctuary, a tufted place where those of us who love driving simply for the sake of driving can retreat while moving forward.
This has always been the case for cars such as the TT — little coupes and roadsters designed and developed solely for the pleasure of the driver. They are inherently selfish automobiles, engineered to respond quickly to the driver’s input, as the TT does so wonderfully well. They are designed to thrill, to bring a broad smile to the face of the driver while rounding a curve at speed, perfectly confident in a car that is perfectly balanced.
Cars such as the TT speak to our inner control freak. That is why Mary Anne, an elegantly mature woman and elementary school teacher, abandoned all of the other metal in our Virginia driveway to get behind the wheel of the red TT 2.0 coupe. She is a woman who steadfastly has resisted every entreaty, every effort to get her to drive a car with a manual transmission. That means she is not, by conventional definition, an automotive enthusiast.
But she could not contain her enthusiasm for the TT 2.0 coupe when she learned it was equipped with a six-speed transmission that could be used automatically and manually.
“The keys, please!” she demanded, and off she went.
Ria spends her days caring for a large family, working for The Washington Post, for me, and teaching tai chi at a community center. You might say she is a bit overburdened. But behind the wheel of the TT, without the boys, she becomes “hot and . . .” — well, you know the rest. Which is why she almost came to tears when the TT went away.
Fantasy and reality, we need both. One helps us escape, at least for a little while, the hardships of the other. Fantasy is expensive, which is why it often comes wrapped in luxury, as is the case with the well-appointed TT 2.0 coupe. Fantasy is impractical, which is why it makes little sense to buy a car such as the TT 2.0 coupe with expectations of maximum utility. Fantasy speaks to hope and joy — the hope that there is an unencumbered road somewhere, and the joy when that rarity is found behind the wheel of a hot and sexy little car.
