by Joe LaMuraglia

I was the guest of VW in Germany this past October and spent time driving the new 2010 VW Golf TDI on the autobahn between Wolfsburg and Berlin. The event was designed to expose us the the history of the Golf as well as give us ample opportunity to drive the product on its home turf.
The 2010 Golf has come a long way from the original compliment to the Beetle in 1974. This model year brings it into its sixth generation and while not a complete replacement to the previous model, the body and interior have changed enough that VW is calling it “all new”. The suspension, engines and transmissions are essentially carryovers with the exception of the TDI – VW’s excellent turbo direct injection clean-diesel engine – is now being offered in the Golf.
VW has offered a TDI option in the Touareg and Jetta for the past few years but is finally returning this engine option to the Golf for 2010. It is very efficient, very clean and compared to diesels of our youth, VERY quiet. Equipped with the standard 6-speed manual transmission, the Golf TDI achieves 30 MPG in the city and 41 MPG on the highway with 0-60 times of 8.6 seconds. If you opt for a automatic shift option, the DSG-equipped cars get the same fuel mileage in the city but a slightly better 42 MPG on the highway without sacrificing performance – it has the exact 0-60 times as the manual-equipped vehicle.
I just took delivery of a blue four-door Golf TDI with VW’s Direct Shift Gearbox (DSG®) and will be piloting it to the 2010 Detroit Auto show from Northern NJ. Our test car is equipped with a sunroof, satellite radio, VW’s long-overdue DVD- based touch-screen navigation, heated seats, Bluetooth and the 300 Watt Dynaudio system. All those options bring the MSRP just north of $28,000.
To give you real feedback from the car, my co-driver and I will be using Twitter to tweet our thoughts about the car from the road. If my initial impression from my trip to Germany is any indication, the TDI should get high marks during this trip. But, as they say, there is nothing like a long road trip to make a car show its true colours. Ok, THEY don’t really say that, I say that…but it really is true. I feel that more people would prefer to go on a road trip with their van as there is more room for luggage and emergency supplies like an RV battery featured in this post. If you are looking for the best road trip machine, why not find a cheaper old van or hire a camper to tour around the country with!
Our tweets will appear in the box below. If you come to this page after we’ve finished, simply hit the play button in the center of the box to read what we had to say. Scroll down to see photos and links to specs and pricing.

Photos Courtesy of Volkswagen of America