2010 Volkswagen Golf GTI
At last month's Automobile Journalists Association of Canada TestFest in Niagara-On-The-Lake, Ont., the winning car in the Best New Sports/Performance car under $50,000 category was the Volkswagen Golf GTI.
Among others, it beat out the new Chevrolet Camaro SS and Hyundai Genesis Coupe - journalists at TestFest put it through its paces, both on the street and on the track, before voting it the best in the category.
I attended the launch of the GTi, back in mid-October, and also had the chance to run it on the street and around the track - in this case, the Mont-Tremblant circuit, just outside of Montreal.
Yes, it is a fast little car, with sure-footed performance and a high toss-ability factor, but the experiences of my colleagues notwithstanding, I came away with different results.
It happened about halfway through the third lap of a five-lap run around the circuit, led by NASCAR/Indy car driver Patrick Carpentier. As my fellow driver, Bob McHugh, and I entered an area known as The Gulch, an unfamiliar noise began to emanate from somewhere under the hood.
I was using the shift paddles at the time and running at about 90-100 km/h. "Do you hear something?" Bob asked as we stared at each other in perplexity. "That doesn't sound right."
Seconds later, the car lost power completely, and I pulled onto the grass shoulder, with nasty, foul-smelling grey smoke pouring out of the hood, accompanied by an appalling mechanical clatter that sounded like someone had thrown a box of nuts and bolts into a cement mixer. I later found out they could hear it back in the pits, and to quote John Cleese, in the Monty Python Dead Parrot Sketch, that particular GTi was no more.
Given the fact that the GTi has a rev limiter and is almost impossible to over-rev, Volkswagen quickly established that the contretemps was not a result of my driving and promised to get back to me after they'd had a chance to look things over.
Several weeks later, I discovered that the verdict was catastrophic engine failure.
"One of the piston connecting rods appears to have broken and came out through the bottom of the engine," explained Peter Viney, Volkswagen Canada's manager of public relations. "All the oil drained away and that was that."
I hasten to add that in 30 years of test driving cars of every type and description on various tracks around the world, this has never happened to me before and is an extremely rare occurrence at the best of times. Needless to say, if it happened to one of VW's customers, all would likely be covered by warranty.
globedrive@globeandmail.com