I am writing this on the plane coming back from the Volvo S80 test-drive.

While this trip allowed me to discover first-hand the direction Volvo is taking and better understand what “Scandinavian luxury” is all about, it also brought to mind how clever European car offerings are.

And by this I don’t mean only the Volvo range, or only European cars sold in Canada. We only get a glimpse of what they have.

I mean the general offering across Europe: clever diesel engines; novel designs that have a Fit (called Jazz out there) or Yaris look mainstream; the preference for station wagons rather than vans or SUVs; and all those companies we don’t come upon here anymore like Peugeot, Renault, Citroen, Alfa Romeo.

Europe is a real heaven for car lovers.

I was lucky enough to spend three years in Belgium in the early ’90s — three years to discover how passionate Europeans are about their cars. And how the passion is reflected in the lineup.

In those years, Canadians looking for a hot hatch had three choices: Honda’s Civic SI, Mazda’s turbocharged version of the 323 or VW’s GTI, the originator of the segment. Include Saab’s 900 Turbo if you were willing to spend more.

Out there, VW’s GTI was also big, but the two other Canadian contenders were merely considered. The GTI was facing competition from Peugeot’s own 205 GTI and bigger 305 GTI, Opel’s Kadett GSi, Alfa Romeo’s 33, Renault’s Clio, Citroen, Fiat, lowly equipped BMW 3-series … And I am forgetting some. Volkswagen even had the GTD, a GTI with the engine replaced by a diesel one, combining impressive handling and decent performance with good fuel economy.

Today, those European companies offer cars one can only wish for out here. Alfa Romeo’s Brera for example is a sexy Giugiaro-designed 3-door GT; Citroen has a full lineup, like Peugeot, offering style and technologies not found out here; BMW offers the 330d, a 3-series delivering 251 lb-ft of torque from a diesel engine; Ford’s Focus out there has a very different chassis and can be had with the turbocharged 5-cylinder Volvo engine. Opel offers cars like the Zafira, competing against the Mazda5 and considered one of the best small minivans, or the Focus-competing Astra — both Astra and Zafira would be worthy additions to Saturn’s lineup, don’t you think? Renault offers futuristic-looking cars like the Espace minivan or the Malibu-sized Megane, while Kia offers the popular Picanto, a smaller-than Rio offering. Brand-new Morgans are available, offered with modern engines but still built on wooden frames. Seat and Skoda are wonderful Volkswagen-owned brands offering lower-cost cars based on the same VW platforms we are used to. The Seat Leon, for example, is a Golf with different sheet metal. Add to that, the availability of wagons on platforms we have here already.

Remember when Volvo offered a diesel engine on our shores? Well, the automaker is offering most of its cars out there with the option of a clever 5-cylinder diesel. Even Toyota, Mazda and Nissan have a diesel offering. Will we see these here now that decent, environmentally respectful diesel fuel is coming our way?

According to top car-company executives, the economics aren’t favorable, unfortunately. The cost in technician training, tooling for dealership and general modifications to the network doesn’t make this option a possibility for companies with a small market share. You can’t recoup such a big investment if you’ll only sell one or two thousand diesel cars per year.

But then I also got to sample Mercedes Benz’s new Blutec diesel technology, and it is not only impressive, it is coming to us in ’07, even if investment to the dealer-network needs to be undertaken. Expect to read more about this wonderful car in the next issue.
Maybe it is only the phenomenon of the grass being greener on the other side of the fence, but Europeans really seem to have choices we Canadians can only dream of.