Consider the Audi TT coupe, a four-wheeled sculpture of such a novel and intriguing shape that when it debuted in 1999 it sent every designer in the industry scurrying for tracing paper. The TT is all about aesthetics, an advertisement of your advanced taste that stands apart from other household artwork only because it requires a routine oil change.

A TT crosses the block cheaper than this top-of-the-test $36,395 example, which is a 1.8T Quattro with 180 horsepower and five gears to flog it with, but only as a front-driver. Turn your nose up on options such as the xenon headlamps and 17-inch wheels of the $1600 Premium package, or the $1200 Bose audio system, and the base Quattro will make you the object of imitation for only $33,595.