Baby, Can You Drive My Car? Not If It's a Stick Shift

[Martin Eden]

91. I came close to buying a Mazda 3 instead of my Golf

Deciding factors were length (Golf is 7+ inches shorter) and cargo space. We keep both cars in the attached garage, and have to walk behind my car to enter the house.

Manual was available only in base trim, which meant I couldn't get the better sound system. Since I boulght it new for $16k (5k off list) I splurged on $3k aftermarket sound system.

I built the subwoofer box myself for a 10" JL shallow mount. Made it out of stacked concentric circles of MDF exact to cubic inch spec for the speaker. The smaller diameter nests in the small spare tire, while the larger half fills out the cube.

The Golf has a 2-level cargo floor in the hatch. In the upper position (4" higher) the sub fits under it with a couple inches gap above the speaker.

Really delivers a bass punch, and you'd never know it was there until you heard it. That stealth cargo space also holds my Alpine 5 channel amp and Audison digital sound processor.