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Four VWs participate in annual media event in Wisconsin
By Cliff Leppke
The annual excursion to the Midwest Automotive Media Association’s 2025 Spring Rally at historic Road America inspired a trivia question:
What’s Wisconsin’s most popular specialty automotive license plate? Is it the University of Wisconsin’s red Badger, the blue/yellow Milwaukee Brewers or the green of the Green Bay Packers? Last one, right? Wrong.
The GR8 PL8 is black/white — Road America — 39,779 of them. The Packers trail at No. 2: 14,270. Those RA plates with their paint-gun grip-like track icon express a passion for motoring — the trackscape, with its surrounding glacial-formed landscape, is enchanting. I experienced it in an Impressionistic blur on May 21.
The weather was wickedly wet and chilly too. Tom Wachs, a meteorologist at WITI-TV in Milwaukee, said measured precipitation varied from one to three inches — a soaker. Nonetheless, MAMA members evaluated VW’s 2025 GTI and Golf R on a slick, as in slippery, racetrack near Elkhart Lake. The blue R’s ample brakes mattered. They let you unleash a burst of turbocharged all-wheel drive forward thrust and then rein in speed before cornering. The R’s sure grip rolled through racetrack rivulets. Good brakes and traction let me see 120 mph on the head-up display and just as abruptly rein in that velocity before tackling tight Turn 5, which leads to an uphill climb to a blind Turn 6.
MAMA’s rally team placed a traffic-calming cone-lined chicane on the Moraine Sweep and a cone-style funnel along the Kettle Bottoms. The former helped drivers moderate speed before the track’s famous overtaking corner Turn 5, while the latter ensures you don’t early apex the Canada Corner with your sights on Thunder Valley. The corner isn’t kind to drivers who don’t apply the binders assertively before entering it. Many have mangled metal and their egos there. Don’t forget Hurry Downs, which indeed heads downward, inviting you to place your ride like a pinball wizard, gently nerfing rumble strips — the arcade game-like bumpers — while you’re having a ball. RA cone contact is verboten.
Due to the weather, some vehicles were rerouted to scenic drives; their tires weren’t suitable for cold pavement with fresh ponds. All track-worthy machines quickly lost their windshield-attached track-ready stickers, whisked away by windshield wipers, causing uncertainty. Drivers couldn’t determine whether carmakers authorized their sleds for a rain dance on RA’s historic road. VW’s Jerohn Anderson, after gentle prodding, kindly added the red GTI to the mix. Both VWs had the firm’s direct shift gearbox. Sorry, not more manuals.
The R has a steering-wheel spoke touch spot. Rub it and you’ll discover the infotainment screen shows an additional array of engine/suspension/transmission settings not found when touching the center dash’s mode-select sensor. Use caution with the » latter; it’s all too easy to touch VW’s quick-access panel while adjusting the vents on either side of it. Pushbuttons, please! I discovered the R’s amply sized paddle shifters let me manually control shifting as if I were Formula One material. I’m not.
To keep drivers dry, organizers routed track vehicles from the paddock toward the nearby Hagerty Tech Center. We could dodge raindrops by ducking inside the joint via its open overhead doors. The resulting hot-wheel phalanx helped us know what tasty treats to sample.
Subaru’s sporting WRX sedan and BRZ coupe added to the fun. The BRZ is a treat. It’s an affordable rear-drive coupe with very good reflexes and a manual transmission. It makes no pretense of luxury carriage — rather noisy in the Subaru boxer four-banger manner. The all-wheel-drive WRX with a clutch pedal performed well. I slid its rear end outward exiting Turn 14; regaining composure was easy.
While RA’s PowerPoint track orientation session at the Tufte Center focused on, say, proper cornering methods — the classic box-the-corner and go-for-a-late apex school of speed — drivers quickly learned it was more important to focus on standing water or the now moist polished asphalt formed by scores of prior cornering mavens.
Scout has a big look
The Spring Rally relies on sponsors. Several carmakers stepped up. Cars.com hosted the first trackside breakfast. Subaru’s following lunch talk introduced its hybrid Forester. Unlike many electrified crossovers, which begin with a front-drive layout and add an electric rear motor, Subaru uses a mechanical connection to the back wheels. Its automated transmission simulates step shifting. Thus it and Honda’s hybrid Civic hybrid, which also simulates step shifting, don’t rev the engine to an annoyingly harsh rpm (Nissan Sentra, Toyota’s Prius/Corolla Cross, say) and let it stay there as the transmission varies ratios to obtain your foot’s desire.
Scout arrived with its Traveler concept, which I thought big enough to wear International’s Travelall badge. Scout’s lead designer, Josh Henry, gave me a Traveler walkaround. Kathy Graham, whom I formerly met at the Dodge Dart launch, is Scout’s PR contact. You’ll notice the Scout (the one shown is the proposed extended range version with rear gas engine) has the vintage Scout’s softly rounded rectangular form.
In addition, it has a short front overhang and sweepback body for a cab-back shape. An equator line formed by the front side markers echoes the Scout II-look (Travelall, too). This heritage line connects the front and rear masks, which is what Henry calls the front-and-rear fascia inserts. The black rocker panel symbolizes the vehicle’s body-on-frame construction. Hint, hint this isn’t your usual VW Group vehicle.
Hyundai fed us the second non-track day breakfast with a focus on its three-row Ioniq 9. Toyota’s off-road oriented 4Runner was the main attraction on the second day’s lunch. Its cockpit rivals a dial-dizzy B-29.
Two new VWs
For street driving, VW offered two new rides: the ID. Buzz and 2025 Tiguan. The Buzz’s Candy White over Energetic Orange exterior color scheme brightened one’s mood on a gloomy Wisconsin day. And those who rode VW’s electrified bus thought the two-tone interior was groovy, too.
I drove the electric $70,600 Buzz Pro S Plus 4Motion — the name seems longer than the truck — during the RA newbie track-orientation laps. No, sir, not on the racecourse. Instead, I headed to Elkhart Lake’s boat launch for a soggy photo op. The Buzz motored nimbly through RA’s paddock and nearby roundabout toward a pathway routing you above the track and to an RA exit. You’d expect lots of rubberneckers when you’re driving a standout VW. Elkhart Lake’s denizens seemed unfazed.
I noticed I couldn’t unfold the Buzz’s side-view mirrors. I had tweaked myself into trouble with an arm-rest knob. The non-descript clay-colored power-mirror dial doesn’t have VW’s usual illuminated/painted/indented pointer. Instead, you must look at the door card’s mirror-knob icons. Four of them surround the knob. The function-icon selected is brighter. After several frustrating minutes of twirling and watching, I deployed the mirrors as desired. VW’s GTI, in contrast, has the same functions. The knob’s got a white position indicator.
The Buzz’s greenhouse offers an expansive vista. Wind noise is obvious but not oppressive at highway speeds. EV range, not surprisingly, drops from the estimated 231 miles when you’re at expressway speeds — likely less than 190 miles with heater/defroster going and speed at 75 mph. Acceleration isn’t vintage VW Bus-like — it’s quick. Ride quality inside VW’s nearly three-ton van apes an inflatable bounce house on ruffled roads. Smooth describes the sliding rear doors. Just squeeze their side-door’s handles; the power-operated doors open or close. The right door will not smash into the rear-quarter panel charging port if its lid is open.
Brake pedal behavior, much like VW’s ID.4, is soft and mushy. Plus, it sinks farther toward the floor than I’d like. I noticed drive modes affected one’s sense of brake pedal action — likely because Sport mode adds recuperative braking without twisting the “shift” lever to B. The direction selector, similar to the 2025 Tiguan’s column-mounted transmission control, is dark at night. The quadrant is on the instrument cluster or Digital Cockpit. The lever’s backside is contoured for your fingers. Thus, you can sense when you’ve alit on the stalk. Rotate it clockwise for forward (and again for B) and counter clockwise for reverse. Press inward for park. You’ll get a stern warning if you accidentally twist counter-clockwise while moving forward.
Since VW announced an April 2025 stop-sale order on the Buzz due to its third-row seat, George Straton, Larry Rust and I revived an old VW stunt. We wedged ourselves into the VW — just the back bench. Uncomfortable.
VW plans revised seat trim to comply with federal seat/seat-belt rules. Meanwhile, it’s developing a software update to solve the brake-warning compliance problem, which led to another stop-sale order. VW says the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards require the word “Brake” or other icon with warning info in text form. Some Buzzes might not show the approved warning telltale in the correct color or the required size. For instance, the driver might see a brake malfunction using the International Organization for Standards’ (!) in amber instead of red.
One wonders how VW, after years of navigating these standards botched these items. This is the third newly minted VW for the States with safety problems requiring VW to issue a stop-sale order. Yet, the Buzz’s difficulties strike most as unusual because they are relatively obscure regulations that don’t pose immediate bodily harm.
Sidebar: Two weeks after the MAMA Rally, Straton drove the press-fleet Buzz to Milwaukee and let me drive the vehicle on rougher roads and during different parts of a day. As a people hauler, the Buzz is an impressive package. VW effectively illuminates the interior as night. You don’t need an usher and a flashlight to locate a seat, find a door control or stow luggage. The vehicle’s exterior LED decoration is distinctively Buzz. The front doors have wave or honeycomb-themed puddle lighting (matches doodles in grab handles, front lighting and faux rear vents). Door handles are lit. You have a choice of interior ambient LED hues.
Charging the Buzz proved vexing. Straton cannot charge at home. Thus, he relied on public chargers. Some VW stores, such as VW Milwaukee North, don’t let you use their fast charger. Thus, we tried the nearby Ford store’s Blink. There were several chargers but the dealership shut the overhead lights off. Blink, moveover, requires you to prepay. The unwieldy charging cable, method of payment and lights out make one feel lost. Straton said another Ford dealer canceled his Blink session because he wasn’t charging a Ford.
I asked VW’s voice assistant to tell me a joke. It turns out the Buzz and new Tiguan now have an onboard comedy club — five jokes. One says things clicked, allowing a seat-belt developer to solve a problem. Another asks what’s got four legs and flies? Two birds. Yet another avian query delves into wordplay or homonyms with chicken coops. Coops/coupes have two doors because a four-door one would be a sedan. And finally, a novice pizza chef needed “mushroom” for improvement. Groan.
$400,000 is hardly overkill
Rally participants had a bevy of choices — rows of off-road and on-road vehicles. Journalists drove the former on a muddy course, while they drove the latter around Elkhart Lake. I became king of the road. Rolls-Royce let me command its V-12 Cullinan SUV. It rode regally; the nearby railroad crossing with a devilish dip didn’t upset it — remarkable. Rolls says its camera-aided Flagbearer system lets the suspension predict road conditions. And an eagle eye will notice tiny shock absorbers for the shock absorbers.
Overkill? Hardly; entry price is more than 400,000. On the other hand, the dashboard’s Spirit of Ecstasy clock cabinet or shrine is a redundancy. Spirit is smack dab at the front of its massive hood. I found the glassy passenger side dashboard fascia distracting. My sensitive eyes and eyewear didn’t cotton to the glare. I found the swift Jeep Wagoneer S EV also had a distracting right-dash glare — a spot for a second above-the-glove box video screen, Jeep says.
I downsized to a different Brit, the BMW-developed Mini. Mini’s rep configured what looks like a 1950 Zenith porthole TV. Zenith president Eugene McDonald and designer Robert Budlong employed a nautical motif to frame Zenith’s early CRTs: a round screen, which stretched images vertically. Mini, likewise, has circular logic — the center dash screen’s round 9.4-inch OLED display is goofy. But normally rectangular motoring apps fit. The fresh Mini is an engaging quasi go-kart.
The biggest blast came from Mini’s parent company: the M5. It’s now a 717-hp plug-in hybrid, twin-turbo V-8 muscle car. And it seems there’s a separate drive setting for each pony. I found one that provided supreme composure, a surprisingly comfortable ride and intoxicating sound effects. Top speed, says BMW, is 190 mph.
Lucid’s Air comes down to earth in several versions. Lucid’s rep helped me configure the low-slung two-motor sedan. It, as with the Volvo EX90 and Polestar 3, makes just a few steering-wheel buttons do double, triple and quadruple duty from adjusting your steering wheel to setting your lumbar support.
I found the Air, which Lucid claims is the most efficient EV you can buy, a pleasant place to whiz past Wisconsin’s wonders. It’s swift and serene. The interior and exterior are much better fitted than the first Air I saw two years ago — practice makes perfect. The panorama glass extends from the cowl to behind the driver’s head. This helicopter effect worked surprisingly well. Sun visors attached to it kept stray light from dazzling my specs.
While other journalists found the two-motor Air the tiger’s meow, I sampled the one-motor, less expensive one. Why? Lucid’s representative recommended it. I found the lighter one-motor setup playful. Interior textiles aren’t exactly plush, but there’s a Herman Miller office-like sensibility to these cars. The way they ferry people strikes me as smarter than their rivals.
In contrast, the new Chevrolet Equinox doesn’t have the Tiguan’s finesse. While this Chevy appears better appointed than the model it replaces and offers riders a flat-rear floor, I found that too much racket wrecked the cabin. GM says this vehicle has standard noise canceling technology. 
Cliff Leppke | leppke.cliff@gmail.com
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
- AS LONG AS IT’S BLACK: At $53,721, the special edition Golf R is an exceptional vehicle.
- UPPING ITS GAAME: The Tiguan SEL R-Line is a notable upgrade from its previous generation.
- MINI BUZZ?: VW’s 2016 BUDD-E concept could get real as a smaller cousin to the ID.Buzz.
PLUS OUR REGULAR COLUMNS AND FEATURES:
- Small Talk – VW + Audi at a glance
- Retro Autoist – From the VWCA archives
- The Frontdriver – Richard Van Treuren
- Beetle World – Steve Midlock
- Editor’s Turn – Fred Ortlip
- Local Volks – Activities of VWCA affiliates
- Classified – . . . Ads from members and others
- Parting Shot – Photo feature