The Volkswagen Jetta is a car that makes you shudder at the thought of picking up dings and scratches while on the road. I learned this the hard way. From the moment I took our long term Jetta, fresh from the factory it looked exceptionally good, and as luck would have it, its badges were stolen within the first few days.

This form of anarchy is unavoidable in a place like Mumbai. You can do little to prevent such occurrences, besides parking in safe/guarded spaces, but little can prevent you from falling prey to badge-hungry thieves. One option was to leave the Jetta badge-less, but that gaping hole in the centre seemed to strip the car of its appeal and just looked downright awful. So within a few days of slotting the VW key into the Jetta’s ignition slot, it was packed off to the workshop to get its identity back. With the pair of badges costing Rs.3,930, VW identity doesn’t exactly come cheap. In fact, it explains why their theft has become such a racket and sadly, there’s nothing that can be done about it.

The Jetta barely settled into the office parking lot, when we whisked it off to Mahabaleshwar for its first proper outing. Since then we’ve given our Jetta its fair share of highway duty, and it’s not hard to understand why. These cars have been designed and developed in a land where speed-limitless highways still exist. This is one reason why most German cars feel so secure and relaxed at their V-max. Also, that’s where we found the Jetta showing off its ‘is-this-all-you-got?’ and ‘I’ve-seen-better’ attitudes on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway.

The Jetta is so incredibly calm and composed it gives the driver and passengers a sheer sense of confidence that outclasses the Civics and Corollas rolling down our roads. The eight airbags and rock-solid build play to your instincts of self-preservation, especially when you have to share the road with 40-tonne trucks piloted by drivers who were born immune to common road-sense. Plus-minusing through the six-speed DSG ’box slots you in the right gear, allowing you to position yourself well for quick overtaking maneuvers, especially up ghats where you need to constantly stick to second and third gears.

Though there’ a reasonable amount of grunt produced from low revs, it simply makes the Jetta feel quicker than it actually is. There’s always a surplus of power even with a full load, which adds to the Jetta’s long-distance prowess. Throw in the economy and the long legs of a diesel and it seems quite the perfect highway car. After pushing hard on the Expressway and then up the short Wai ghat to 1,300m above sea level saw the Jetta return 12.3kpl. This is a highly impressive figure, given the spirited driving and the constant use of the steering-mounted paddle-shifts. The gruff engine note does give the sleek-looking Jetta a furrowed feeling that’s definitely out-of-place, but a bigger disappointment in the area of refinement is the excessive tyre noise. I suspect it’s because of those deep grooves in the tread, which drum up quite a din on our uneven and poorly surfaced roads. The suspension too isn’t particularly quiet and there’s a hard edge that is quite obvious over sharp edges.

After cruising well past the 3,000km mark, the Jetta still looks and feels showroom-fresh with not a squeak or rattle out of it. And that’s way we hope to keep it.

What’s hot
* Paddle shifts - Makes overtaking easier.
* Glovebox - Solid and opens with a wonderfully damped feel.

What’s not
* Manual seats – We expect powered seats in a Rs.17 lakh car.
* Tyre roar - Too much of it enters the cabin.

24/04/2009