2013 Volkswagen Up

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Ford once wanted us to spell the name of its doomed electric-car concern as Th!nk. That makes Volkswagen’s mandate of an exclamation point on its “up!” city car seem less grammatically absurd. Still, we’re putting typographic cheekiness aside and rendering it Up.

Cuteness, typographic or otherwise, is the norm in little city runabouts. Invariably, they project a sort of sexless kookiness. But this European-market city car, down one cylinder and more than seven inches of length to a Mini, is a product of typically sober VW. Its comes by its cuteness less overtly. With its 15-inch wheels pushed all the way to the corners, the Up looks improbably simple, as if sketched as a cartoon. Children’s book creator Richard Scarry might have drawn the happy Up, no doubt being driven by a smiling cat wearing lederhosen.

Our smiles while driving the Up weren’t as broad, but we were smitten with its cool charm, its clown-car-like feats of packaging, and its ambience, which is not at all chintzy. It’s a refreshingly honest little box of transportation, which VW won’t bring to the States anytime soon because the car is far too sensible. There’s nothing revolutionary about the Up. It follows the basic blueprint that the original Mini laid down more than a half-century ago. Simply tuck the tiny 74-hp, 999-cc engine into the front pocket of this 2029-pound commuter, and leave the rest to package the flesh of adult humans.

Naturally, the Up is very slow (11.8 seconds to 60 mph), and its skinny tires struggle to hold 0.80 g on the skidpad. But the Up feels nimble, lithe, and unburdened. And this city car isn’t intimidated by interstates, where it is unusually stable and quiet for a squirt. The only econo-car nastiness is the traditional three-cylinder vibration that runs through the primary controls.

The Up returned 36 mpg in mixed driving, splitting the difference between B-segment cars we’ve tested and small hybrids.

At around $14,000, the Up would represent the sort of high-quality, efficient, not-dangerously-slow vehicle that a sensible p­erson might want to drive to work every day. Maybe if VW swapped the “!” part of the badge for “hybrid,” there would be ­sufficient demand here!