Received an email from Brother Dennis today. Reported that he had just concluded an 800+ mile round trip from Barcelona to Nice in the VW Polo rental car shown below. He reported that the Polo was solid and, while not particularly powerful, acquitted itself well in handling the twisting roads of the Pyrenees and Alps, not to mention the “impossibly narrow” streets in old sections of cities and villages. Dennis also tells us that he greatly enjoyed using a manual transmission, after quite a few years of automatic-only driving.  I advised him to try the GTI version next time.  Or another member of the VW Group, like a Macan.  Hey, but I wouldn’t mind seeing the Polo come to the U.S.

Browse on over to Firestone Tire’s fascinating graphical representation of the history of the car industry and branding at http://www.firestonetire.com/story-americas-top-car-brands/.