> ... for perhaps slightly more money.

European cars are incredibly expensive these days and have been for a while compared to imports.

About 7 years ago I was looking for a new car and had only owned and drove VW cars. Naturally, I looked at VW, the Golf in particular. With all the bells and whistles, it came to about 35k EUR. A Civic was about 11K cheaper. Guess what I bought?

There was nothing in the Golf that could justify the extra cost. Nowadays is the same.