Interior
The car has a large center pod where the air conditioning, radio, and (in certain trims) the navigation system are integrated with a large LCD display. The buttons look of high quality plastic and have a nice tactile feel. The system operates with a cursor based buttons (like a the cursor buttons on a DVD player), thus it's not touch screen based - which we think is great considering all the oily finger prints normally associated with one. It may need a bit of time to adjust to - but we think it has an acceptable level of intuitiveness that we were able operate all the features within a few hours. 



As soon as we sat in the driver's seat, we realized how gorgeous the electro-illuminescent gauges were. Sharp and clear with very little wash out even in the bright Florida sun. The rest of the interior is attractive with high quality leather, soft touch plastics and cloth-covered pillars lending a European touch. We preferred the lighter interiors to the black interior.

The Q comes with standard features such as dual zone climate control, wood trim (especially gorgeous in the bird's eye maple), one touch automatic windows (up and down), one touch sunroof, two position memory seats, retained power to close windows after taking the key out, tilting and telescoping power steering column, electronic key with remote entry, and auto dimming rear view mirror. Forgive us if we've left anything out as the Q enjoys a full list of gadgetry making it tough for mere mortals to keep track of.

The standard voice recognition system worked well when asked to turn off the climate control, to raise or lower the temperature, and to change radio stations. We’d like to spend a bit more time with the  system to see how often we normally use it after the “neat feature” phase passes.

Optional are the DVD navigation system and active damping sport suspension
(not quite as sophisticated or costly to fix as the first gen Q45a). There's also a premium package, which includes reclining rear seats with audio and heating controls, power rear sun shade, plus the navigation and sport suspension thrown in. And the coolest feature of this package is the tail-mounted camera, which automatically activates when the transmission is shifted in reverse.

Annoyances
Power window buttons are buried below the door handles. The sunglass holder looks down market with hard plastic and unfinished edges 

The ceiling grab handles are the old-school carrying case style and not the smooth auto-adjusting style. Nitpicking some might say, but VW even has silicon dampened grab handles. The trunk has gooseneck hinges. Should have been struts we say but at least they covered up the metal hinges with some nice plastic. 

Audio System
The new Q boasts a 300-watt Bose system with 8 speakers and digital signal processing. Just hype? While it may not be the best factory system, the Bose system is certainly in the top percentile with good definition and clean sound at loud levels. Three 2.5" midrange speakers sit on top of the dash. Two 6.5" woofers are located on the front doors with 5.25" full range speakers in the rear door. A 12" woofer (wow!) and a digital amplifier sit inside the rear shelf. Bose touts it's Audio Pilot system, which samples the sound within the cabin and adjusts the amplifier to compensate for road and wind noise.

We were yearning for an in dash CD player instead of the 6 disc glove compartment changer but you could overlook that once you spend a bit of time appreciating the system.

Overall
The new Q is quite impressive. The car has an enviable list of performance and luxury features for it's $50,500 base price tag, undercutting the competition by a few thousand dollars. The car takes risks in styling but pays off big time in communicating a distinctive message to those who see the car and, more importantly, those who get a chance to drive it. Enough justification, we think, to earn the car a hard-to-earn superhero vehicle status. After all, anyone who pays 50k for personal transportation should be able to experience these sort of manic feelings about themselves when driving. Otherwise, what's the point?