VW Jetta: It's great to see the Jetta badge back.
For anyone who grew up in the early 1980s, it was a name synonymous with Volkswagen.
A farmer's favourite in rural areas, it seemed like every second taxi in Dublin was a Jetta. The fact that years after it was killed off you could still see Jettas trundling the country's roads spoke volumes for its resilience and the well-earned respect in which it was held.
Sure, the rest of the world was wowed by the Golf. And it was a fine car - still is - but it was a hatchback and we in Ireland don't seem to think we have a real car unless it comes with a boot. Hatchbacks are for the better-half.
In that way we're more Boston than Berlin: while Europeans increasingly shun the traditional saloon, our American cousins love the three-box format too, and the Jetta has been the best-selling European car in the US for some time.
Of course, like many large companies with a strong selling product on its hands, VW couldn't leave well enough alone. Too many marketing types with too little to do, they came up with a fabulous way to boost their budgets and create more work for themselves: take a car that's relatively well-known and accepted and give it an entirely new name.
Doing that, of course, meant upping the marketing budget to allow for more campaigns to introduce the new name, and as we all know in business, the bigger your budget the bigger your clout. Out went the Jetta and in came the Bora.
Obviously rebadged by a student of the realist school of marketing, the efforts at honesty were not greatly appreciated by the audience.
Whatever the Teutonic marketing types would have us believe, the Bora was not some smartly-priced saloon.
It was a Golf with a boot and any claims to the contrary were nothing more than warm wind up your tailpipe. It was just as exciting as the name suggested.
Someone saw sense some years ago and this time, thankfully, instead of simply welding more metal to the back of a Golf, they've opted to look towards the larger Passat for guidance.
True, about 80 per cent of the body shell and what lies beneath, as well as virtually all the cabin, comes straight from the Golf. However, the new Jetta is virtually the same size as the previous Passat and takes its exterior lines from the new version.
While the Bora was aimed at the saloon version of the likes of the Focus and Corolla, the sort of space on offer here - both in the boot and the back seats - is worthy of a fully-fledged family saloon and VW is clearly targeting the entry level versions of saloon rivals like the Ford Mondeo or Opel Vectra.
That may seem like a tremendous leap of faith, yet there's no denying the Jetta does now have a certain upmarket image, from its chrome front grille to the neon-style LED "fast-response" brake lights.
As with its hatchback sibling, the Jetta is enjoyable to drive, with high-quality switchgear, confidence-inspiring steering and a comfortable ride.
There is one practical criticism of the Jetta's load-lugging ability: a seven-inch lip on the boot that impedes loading.
Given that the raison d'être of the Jetta is to provide Golf customers with a more spacious option within their current price bracket, you'd think they would have got this right.
Also the rear seats don't fold completely flat.
Our test car was the entry-level version. That means certain things are left out, right down to such features as rear seat pockets.
That said, the Comfortline version does include cruise control and that's worth the extra outlay.
The engine range starts with the 102bhp 1.6-litre engine - the power unit for our test car - but it's simply not up to the job.
The basic four-cylinder unit was not helped by a stodgy automatic transmission.
The end result was a higher level of engine noise than one would get with the regular manual transmission. We spent most of our time in semi-automatic mode in an effort to take back some control from the transmission.
Perhaps the best buy in the Jetta range will be the 1.9 TDI diesel.
Yet when it comes to parting with the cash, the new car is tripped up by one of its own team mates.
And there's the rub.
The big problem with the Jetta is the price: Volkswagen has got it terribly wrong in this instance, for it's far too close to the Passat.
Why would you opt for a Jetta rather than go the extra mile for the bigger brother?
It will set you back another €2,175 at the entry level, but you get the much better FSI version of the 1.6-litre engine in the Passat as well.
Compare like for like, and in most instances the gap is less.
For example, the 1.6-litre FSI engine in the Jetta in Comfortline trim is just €1,095 less than equivalently specified Passat.
Some may argue that not everyone needs the extra space, but these days who's going to pass on a bigger boot - and a better engine - for the sake of €2,000.
Consider also the fact that when it comes to resale the added space and the Passat name are likely to be worth more.
Now €1,000 is not to be sneezed at, but when you are buying something in the order of €25,000 it doesn't seem much for a significantly bigger car with more refinements and ultimately a badge with more cache for the corporate car pool.
Starting at €23,575, it's in a really cut-throat price bracket.
If you were to take €25,000 as a cut-off point, then you could still opt for the likes of the Ford Mondeo 1.8-litre LX (€24,770), Opel Vectra 1.6-litre Life (€24,800) and Toyota Avensis 1.6-litre (€24,645).
The Jetta brings back fond memories of a time when VW was the brand to have, the standard bearer for German engineering and a good all-rounder.
When comparing it to the competing saloon versions of hatchbacks, it leaves them in its wake.
That's why it's such a pity then that the pricing is so out of kilter.
If it looks like a regular saloon, is the same size as a regular saloon and priced like a regular saloon, then it needs to be compared to regular saloons.
In which case, if you were going to buy a Volkswagen, you would have to opt for its bigger brother.
Alternatively, we'd opt for the Octavia from the VW-owned Skoda brand.
It offers all that space - plus the same VW fit and finish - for a lot less money.
Given the ill-fated name change some years back and now the pricing, it seems like someone in Volkswagen is determined to stymie sales.
