22 JAN 06: PASSAT FANCY

The big "Monster Truck Tour" completed a two-night stand at the Columbus Civic Center Saturday night. Hopefully none of the trucks got loose, the way those bulls did last weekend - because Columbus Police cars wouldn't stand a chance....

My dad drove 18-wheelers around greater Kansas City for decades. My big brother still does, making regular runs up the interstate to St. Joseph, Missouri. Yet I was NOT drawn to the Monster Truck tour. If the trucks aren't carrying stacks of dog food or 55-gallon drums of oil, what's the point?

Instead, I was drawn this weekend to a different sort of vehicle. My mailbox recently had an enticing offer to try out a new Volkswagen Passat. It wasn't enticing because my present car is 12 years old. It was because it offered something almost as valuable -- a 50-dollar gas card.

All I had to do was test drive a new Passat, get a business card from a Volkswagen dealer, mail in a form and receive a 50-dollar gas card. Yet I admittedly had a bit of trepidation about this. Would the dealer play "hardball" with me, to make me buy a car? Would the salesman know my credit score, simply by looking at me?

Carl Gregory Volkswagen is located just north of the J.R. Allen Parkway, a bit east of Veterans Parkway, and toward the end of what might be called Carl Gregory Boulevard. The street is filled with car dealers - and there's still open green space, in case Hummer ever decides to have a Columbus location.

If you want to test drive a car, Friday morning is a great time to do it. No traffic bothered me at all on Carl Gregory Boulevard, and no other customers were in sight at the Volkswagen dealer. But then again, the sales team had nothing else to do but sequester me all day....

"That's the first one of those I've seen," said Miles the salesman inside Carl Gregory Volkswagen. I received the Passat gas card offer weeks ago, but this was new to him. Maybe all the other southside residents who received it need METRA bus service to reach that part of tow -- assuming there is some.

(By the way, isn't Miles a great name for a car salesman? I wonder if he'd have to change his name to Kilometers in Canada....)

Miles was puzzled by the offer I'd handed him. "Do you need me to stamp your card?" he asked twice. Nope, a business card and a test drive were what I needed. But he seemed reluctant about the test drive part. It was almost as if he suspected something was up - like the test would go to Cataula, and leave him there.

After taking the offer to a mystery manager I never saw, Miles went to another room and picked up the key to a Passat. It's a key unlike anything I've ever seen - as you simply push it in to start the car. The only "cranking" you do on this model is to turn up the stereo.

Miles took the wheel for the first part of the test drive, and asked some questions like he was trying to figure me out. What do I drive now? A 1994 Honda. Would you be trading it in? Yes, I'd have to -- and I said this before noticing the Passat's $29,000 sticker price.

The one-lap test drive began with Miles turning right onto Veterans Parkway - and he powered the six-speed automatic transmission from 0 to 60 in only a few seconds. Thankfully, no police officer was around to remind him the speed limit is only around 40.

The card from Volkswagen noted the 2006 Passat 2.0T has 120 "not-so-standard features." I checked a few from the passenger's seat, such as the sunroof and completely built-in stereo. And I especially admired the "one-liter bottle holders" in each door - since my car's "cup holders" barely handle 12-ounce cans.

Miles turned the Passat into the parking lot of Marvin's Market for my turn behind the wheel. We both noted how empty Marvin's was, especially for a Friday. Has the upcoming Wal-Mart SuperCenter scared this business away already?

Miles had set the driver's seat with plenty of leg room - space I did NOT need, since I'm not that tall. So instead of relaxing behind the wheel, I sat up as if I was about to start a NASCAR race.

The speaker in the driver's side door of the Passat was covered with bright blue masking tape. Miles explained the person doing "detailing" on the car hadn't quite finished his job. I could relate to this, as in 1990 I bought a car without a working gas gauge. The first tank was quite a guessing game....

We drove north on Veterans Parkway to Williams Road, but I did NOT do the 0-to-60 thing Miles did. I'm a true weirdo when it comes to Columbus driving - as I actually think the speed limit signs mean what they say.

Turning onto Williams Road, Miles showed me how the "Tiptronic" shift option of the Passat works. Even though the car has an automatic transmission, I can override it and use manual gears. How he did this from the passenger's side, I'm not quite sure - but I'd want to know, if I'm ever carjacked.

Another unusual feature of the Passat is an electronic dashboard with a timing mechanism. You can figure out how many minutes it will take to drive from one place to another. In Columbus, this might be helpful. In accident-prone and gridlock-filled Atlanta, this would be ridiculous.

Williams Road winds into Moon Road, and Moon Road took us to the J.R. Allen Parkway so I could try a bit of highway driving. The entrance to the freeway in the Passat was quiet and smooth. Sometimes with my old Honda, the engine's noise mixes with me saying, "I think I can...."

The quick test-drive was over in less than 15 minutes - and to tell the truth, the Passat was a pleasure to drive. On top of that, Miles was a mild-mannered man to deal with. He was anything but a high-pressure salesman. In fact, when I first saw him I almost thought he was the parts department manager.

Miles read me correctly on one point: I really was there for the 50-dollar gas card, not a contract for a $29,000 Volkswagen Passat. We left shaking hands, and I promised to keep him in mind when the time came to buy my next car. But I did NOT tell him a "blogger on a budget" doesn't need much more than a Beetle.

Now let's take a spin around the area, for headlines from a truly springlike weekend:

+ The annual "march for life" abortion protest was held outside the Government Center. You have to admire these protesters' tenacity - because no one on Columbus Council has called for a local abortion ban in years.

(The "Chattahoochee Valley United for Life" activities included a Saturday night concert at the Trade Center. The headline act was a group called "Ezekiel's Eye." Well, I assume it's a group - since there's no listing for it under optometrists.)

+ "One Baby Place" at Doctor's Hospital marked its tenth anniversary. So is it old enough now to have a sibling named Two?

+ The Muscogee County "Junior Marshals" meeting held a kickoff program inside the Government Center. It's nice to see former Marshal Ken Suddeth's old honorary badges are being recycled....

(Deputy marshal Wilbert Williams says the Junior Marshals' program will include competitions, to reduce delinquency by promoting work as teams. C'mon now - these youngsters can watch "Survivor" every week and learn something different.)

+ The racketeering trial of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman was scheduled for early May. The Siegelman campaign is pleased by this, because the trial should end before the primary in June. But really now - is THIS how you want to build name recognition for a candidate before an election?

+ CBS's "48 Hours Mystery" focused on the case of Atlanta college student Shannon Melendi. Butch Hinton was convicted of killing Melendi in 1994, even though her body never has been found and there's no real crime scene. This could mark the beginning of the end for those "CSI" shows....

+ The "Northland Neighbors" newspaper reported about 700 people joined me at the RiverCenter opera January 11. So the Bill Heard Theatre was only 35-percent full -- yet the Mozart Opera Theater is coming back next year. This is obviously NOT the National Football League....

+ Auburn marked 100 years of college basketball, by losing at home to Arkansas 68-52. WRBL claimed the Tigers would wear "throwback uniforms," but they certainly didn't look that way to me. And it absolutely didn't look that way, on the Auburn dance team.

(The basketball centennial included a "legends game," and an appearance by Charles Barkley. And the Auburn fans continued a long tradition of their own - as there were all sorts of empty seats in the upper sections.)

+ Columbus High School won a Georgia state wrestling title in its division. So who do the wrestlers get to face, when "WWE SmackDown" comes to town?

+ Instant Message to WKZJ "K 92.7": You didn't play many Lou Rawls songs after he died. You didn't play many Wilson Pickett songs after he died. Do you really want me to turn off your station, and play that Time-Life "Soul Ballads" collection all day?

COMING SOON: The thing I said which made someone utter a racial slur.... at church....

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