By Philip Ruth–
What does “sporty” mean to you?
I can answer that, as much to the bemusement of my friends, I’m on a Spice Girls YouTube kick. And so Sporty Spice comes to mind.
In “Wannabe,” Sporty is in sweatpants and doing backflips. In “Stop”—a well-intentioned video that encourages visiting with and engaging the seniors among us—she’s in black and oxblood leather as she skips rope with the neighborhood kids.
These personifications reflect the sensibilities of our two SUVs this time: the $24,525 Hyundai Venue Limited and $53,190 Volkswagen Atlas Cross Sport SEL Premium R-Line. They’re vastly different in size and segment, but they do effectively sum up the sweatpants-versus-oxblood question in buying a new sporty car in our current environment.
Sweatpants can imply a fast-and-loose way of going through the world, and the Venue is down with that. At less than 71 inches in width, the Venue slips through traffic gaps while sitting you up high to see everyone you’re passing.
The Venue is responsive. Step into the accelerator, and there’s instant go from the 1.6-liter four-cylinder engine. It is not a muscle car, but that power is there in the clutch. I’d like to say that hostility among San Francisco drivers has abated following the pandemic, but I can’t, and so having a compact under your command that is immediately responsive is a measurable plus.
Beyond these basics, the Venue Limited is a tidier and cheaper Mini Cooper, incorporating the white roof and zippy sensibility without the pretension and expense. The Venue shows up strong in a market that GM and Ford and Stellantis have pointedly ignored.
Volkswagen has also departed from the Venue-level market, with its cheapest Taos S listing $4,000 above the $19,900 Venue SE.
I can’t blame a corporation for pursuing greater profits, and so the 78-inch-width Atlas Cross Sport is a two-row, slant-backed version of the three-row Atlas. It’s where we get the oxblood interpretation of sportiness.
A 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder is the only engine, and you can imagine the many computations that would go into grunting a heavy SUV up San Francisco’s hills with four cylinders. There’s massive thinking happening while you patiently wait for smooth thrust.
Atlas steering is too light, whether in standard form or Cross Sport, to where I beg VW’s engineers if they’re reading this to please firm it up and add more tactile feel. The Atlas driver can feel as if they’re along for the ride, which is far from the ‘90s spirit of Volkswagen Fahrvergnügen.
OK, but the Atlas Cross Sport’s interior is immediately impressive, with rich materials and vibrant color accents. This VW is wide and broad and pointed and, yes, macho. If you’re buying it for presence, then the Atlas is mission accomplished.
The Venue has a different trajectory that may speak more directly to a buyer’s needs, and I found it to be the more impressive one. I may most identify with Posh Spice, but I’m a practical gal, after all.
Philip Ruth is a Castro-based automotive photojournalist and consultant with an automotive staging service.
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Published on March 7, 2024
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