Being English in Virginia is a mixed blessing. Though it can be useful in overcoming beaurocratic resistance "would you mind awfully…", to many, I'm speaking a foreign language; but since they know it's some sort of English, they don't want to say 'I don't understand', preferring instead to guess what I might have said. In DIY stores, for instance, even a simple question like "where are the nails?" leads to a lengthy wild goose chase.

In a similar vein, the GTO seems to attract a lot of comments at traffic lights, many of which I simply don't understand. "Whaasssheroouuun?" someone asked me the other day. After several attempts at clarification, I finally realised he was enquiring about the car's quarter mile times. Of course, I have no idea, and I doubt it'll be anything particularly spectacular, but, it's proof that this new GTO has already gained a reputation beyond its actual capability.

It's growing in my estimation too. It's such an elegant design, especially when viewed from a distance, on the rare occasion I see another one. That rarity might explain why a car that's neither exotic nor expensive has become a bit of a head-turner.

Most wouldn't regard a GTO as a family car, but it's as near to an SUV as I'm prepared to go, and manages to carry us (if not our luggage) on some lengthy trips in considerable comfort. Even after eight hours to Hilton Head, near Savannah, no-one complained of stiff legs or lack of circulation.

On these long journeys, it's a good idea to have something to think about. Trying to find a decent radio station for more than five minutes takes up some of the time. For a six hour drive to New York, I decided to test the Goat's mileage figures. The government fuel consumption figures - 16 City, 25 Highway, for the GTO - are generally regarded as optimistic, so I was surprised to see an average 28 mpg when I got to NYC. That's 35 in UK gallons, not bad for a V8 muscle car.

Fuel consumption isn't why you'd buy a GTO, of course, and neither is driving around the Big Apple for that matter. But I find driving there a lot easier than flying. Remarkably, New York has quite a lot of free on-street parking, providing you're prepared to do the 'Manhattan Parking Shuffle'.

Many of the residential streets will allow free parking, except for an hour and a half every day when they clean the streets - alternating on each side of the street every other day. At exactly 9:00am - or whatever time is posted on the sign - all the drivers get in their cars, with coffee and a newspaper, and in perfect synchronisation, double park their cars on the opposite side of the street, where they sit, engines running, reading their newspapers. Shortly afterwards, the street cleaning truck hurtles - and I mean hurtles - down the empty side of the street. In a sort of automotive Mexican Wave (just 'wave' to the Americans), the cars immediately fall back to the original side of the street in the wake of the cleaning truck, where the drivers remain (in case the Police come round) until exactly 10:30, when they all simultaneously get out of their cars and return to their apartments.

There's 'free' parking, as in costs no money. And 'free' parking, as in available spaces. I've never had a problem in finding spaces on numerous other visits to Manhattan, but on this trip, the parking gods had abandoned me. New Yorkers make best use of space by parking bumper-to-bumper, meaning the poor GTO was too often, a foot too long. After an hour and a half, I'd really wish I'd flown, or at least brought the Golf.

I haven't had a chance to put it round a circuit yet, so not surprisingly, nothing major's gone wrong - it's even still on its original rear tyres (I must get out more). Though, it has developed a couple of interesting electronic peculiarities: all on the same day, the speedo started swinging wildly across the dial (TVR owners will know what I mean), the radio decided I should start listening to hip hop music, and the wipers adopted a useful feature of returning to Intermittent when stationary (not a standard feature). All very odd.

Unlike European manufacturers, the Americans seem wedded to traditional service intervals, with oil changes required every five thousand miles, even on this big, unstressed engine. We bought service coupons when we bought the car, so all the routine maintenance is free, and gets done at the local VW dealer (where we bought it), Browns of Richmond, which is very pleasant: I get coffee and to kick the tyres of their new Golf GTIs for an hour. Unlike UK dealers, though, they never clean the car, which is a little disappointing.

Since the summer's here, I'm going to try and get it out on a track. But I need to ask around for events in the area. I'll just have to speak slo-o-wly.