KeriBlog

Cars, Security and a Peek into my Life

The GSR – A Special Edition of a Special Edition

In the 1970s, VW produced a Special Edition Beetle, a GSR – Gelb Schwarzer Renner – Yellow Black Racer.

40 years later, it’s the 2014 GSR.

Only 3,500 made.

Went for a quick run while in Napa, California last fall. It was at VW’s 1.8L Diesel Turbo & Jetta launch, so once around the drive loop at the day’s end.  That drive loop.

It’s a 2.0 TSI 4-cylinder engine, outputting 201 hp and 207 lb-ft of torque.

Handles and launches, all of it, exactly as you’d expect; VW’s heart went into this car.

The 2014 GSR Beetle
Starting at $33,635

 

 

VW’s All-new 1.8L Turbo in the 2014 Jetta

Driving in Napa Valley CA looks like this.

[another video: Driving Elation]

I was with Volkswagen, to test their all-new 1.8L engine, and the 2014 Jetta.

Plenty of kick, handles precise and direct, nice note.

2014 Volkswagen Jetta

1.8L TSI Turbo – 170 hp & 184 lb.ft

Note: to get the new 1.8L engine, you have to bump up to the 3rd trim level, Comfortline. The base 2.0L Jetta is starting at $14,990, the 1.8L Comfortline is +$7,000-ish, totalling about $22,000.

Do it, never mind the old 2.0L engine, spend the money with an art-of-long-view.  Here’s my full review on Autonet.ca.

NO SCREEN

Yes I’m yelling, it’s that rare. And that tipped me over: I’d buy this car, this model year. I’ll guess this will be one of the last times that a Jetta can be ordered without a screen.

Plus, the new 1.8L engine; VW’s ergonomic elegance; and an exterior styling that will wear well over time, because it too, is minimal. No GPS; barely any aids, with cruise control being the fanciest; and available in manual.

Then tada – this would be my car for the next 15 years. An great commuter between test vehicles, and a fun week-off car.  And I’d seriously consider the diesel.

It was maybe my best-test-day to date.

They had 50! cars lined up, more than half were manual, rare; and also rare was, there were more cars than journalists, so I was alone all day… no passenger time, no passenger.

Called this video, “Driving Elation”.

 

 

Favourite Autonet Articles I Recently Wrote

Some of my neater topics of recent news stories. Click through to read the story.

Here’s my Autonet.ca news section, updates with 3 articles/week.

In 1998, LA Magazine predicts what cars will be like today, and they got a lot right.

 

Volvo’s trying to make a car smell like nothing, because that delicious “new car smell” is actually, low level emissions from the materials.

 

Nissan designs robots to behave like schools of fish, then uses them for autonomous car research.

 

Google chooses Volkswagon as its first-ever automotive parnter / collaborator.

 

#VWArtHeist #Toronto #ha

Here is your clue:

Think like me, there’s more than enough information here to reveal its location, think like a spy…

I’ll update this by the day’s end to reveal how and where, good luck!!

(I’m driving a Jetta GLI )

UPDATE:

I gave you the art’s location through…. EXIF data – the information that comes attached to a photo when you have your GPS turned on and take a photo.

Click here to see where I uploaded the photo to Google, look on the right, there’s a map pinpointing where the photo was taken.

Here’s a closer look at geo-location data that came from the photo:

I leave my turned off, always, and suggest you do too before posting a photo online.

Smarten Up, Internet.

I Loved Last Sunday

Not in the city anymore.

This is CFB Borden, our Forces largest training facility, and birthplace of our Air Force. I came to cheer on my friends who competed all weekend in a long range rifle competition.

En route to the range, I saw this.

They were filming a helicopter scene, kinda neat. Here’s the IMDB page, here’s some good photos at BlogTO.

I doubt this applies to me. Carry on. Keri on.

Found my friends, watched the award ceremony. The ORA is 130 years old this year; that’s old.

That’s how long range rifle wins are celebrated.

Bet you an Eos has never before been photographed in this setting.

We always go to Tim’s after. 

These guys have been my pals for years, and they know me well.  Left is Mark and on the right is Andy, to whom I gave the first quilt I ever made, click here to see.

While I was away from the table they put part of my cookie in a tiny ziploc bag. Then when taking this photo, I turned back and they’d been holding it up for the camera.

I’m not even gonna try to explain the joke, but all of Borden heard my laugh. That ziploc is on my fridge now.

Then I came home to these giant Twitter threads.

I found this extremely funny.

The green arrow points to what kicked it all off, and this will likely make zero sense to you, but just know: the top right was how it was.

Twitter has changed a lot, back in 2008 it was just… different. If you don’t use Twitter you won’t understand this.

Actually, if you don’t, I don’t understand you. It’s the great equalizer!  Like, you _do_ realize you can now reach anyone in the world.  That’s never existed before.

Then to cap off my fantastic Sunday, random fireworks #GoodSign

 

 

 

Categories

Archives