I refuse to pass along rumors that Bi-Xenons will soon invade the Earth and enslave us all.

In contrast, the basic Jetta S, powered by a naturally aspirated 115-horsepower 2-liter engine, starts at $17,715. One step up is the $19,715 SE powered by a turbocharged 170-horsepower 1.8-liter 4-cylinder. So the GLI Edition 30 flies high over lesser Jettas.

But there’s still a lot of $18,000 Jetta S in this $30,000 GLI. The interior decoration isn’t just austere, it’s severe. The dashboard shapes are simple, the controls are straightforward and what decoration exists is easy to overlook. There’s nothing about the controls that’s illogical or frustrating, but there’s nothing memorable either.

Then there are the door panels, which are hard and unyielding. Softer textures there would make the whole cockpit feel richer and more comfortable.

Beyond that, the navigation screen is a puny five inches and the menus one has to scroll through to get anything done are obscure. I never did get my iPhone 5S to synch with the GLI’s Bluetooth system.

But the Fender-branded sound system makes fantastic noise.

The “leatherette” front seats aren’t as supportive as they should be, and for no apparent reason are not the same ones used in the GTI. But things impove when the start button low on the center console is pressed, the engine whirs to life and settles into a deceptively anonymous idle. Deceptive simply because this engine is flat wonderful. Flat, like its torque curve.

While the 210-horsepower rating seems modest — the Ford Focus ST’s 2-liter turbo engine is rated at 252 horsepower — the 207-pound feet of peak torque is available way down at 1,700 r.p.m. and then keeps on pulling. There are moments when snicking through the light-shifting 6-speed manual transmission seems almost superfluous. The low-end torque production is so easygoing that it doesn’t matter that the engine’s redline — the upper limits of safe operation — is only 6,100 rpm.

If the stick shift is too much work, a dual-clutch 6-speed automated transmission is also available for another $1,100. Car and Driver magazine tested a manual transmission 2013 Jetta GLI — when the engine was rated at 200 horsepower — and achieved a 0 to 60 time of 6.4 seconds. The current car doesn’t feel any quicker than that.