#2019VolkswagenJettaGLI

“Schläfer” is the German word for sleeper, or so Google tells me (I spent my foreign language education on Spanish, and I can perhaps order in a restaurant using that language. Maybe). Perhaps it should just be changed to 2019 Volkswagen GLI.

Yeah, there are still sleeper cars on the market – and this delightful spin on an already reliable German econobox is one of them.

I’ve found the normal Jetta to be solid, affordable transport. But for those who want to spice up their schnitzel, so to speak, the GLI does the trick nicely. And unlike just about all of the other sporty compacts, include corporate stablemate Golf GTI, it does so without advertising what it is. Your mother-in-law won’t know this is a performance car, unless you dig deep into the throttle. Or downshift in anger to pass a slowpoke.

Volkswagen’s latest iteration of the Jetta is a well-rounded commuter car, but a tad boring. VW had an easy fix for that in mind – just implant the heart of the GTI hot hatch along with some Golf R bits. Boom, instant sports sedan.

There’s been a GLI version of the Jetta since 1984, and every previous one I’ve driven has been a fun little hoot to drive; a way to put a little spice in the otherwise sorta bland Jetta recipe. This one, though, ups the ante. Instead of a nice little sprinkle of seasoning, someone in the kitchen doused it with cayenne pepper.

What you get here is not just a Jetta that’s more fun to drive, but a proper affordable sport sedan.

Big, hulking trucks may have stolen the spotlight in the lead-up to the Chicago Auto Show, but Volkswagen still holds an interest in plain ol’ cars. In the interest of preserving your interest in said cars, VW took its new-for-2019 Jetta sedan into the shop and hauled out the surgical instruments.

The first component removed was the standard, thrifty 1.4-liter four-cylinder. Then, VW engineers went to town on the rear suspension, scrapping the low-cost torsion-beam setup. What emerged from the operating room was the 2019 Jetta GLI — a GTI for people who like trunks.