VW Jetta diesal question?

[Baker55]

So, I was looking around at cars and their specs.
And I become interested in the diesal powered Jetta's (The 2001 model specifically)

And noticed that the GL TDI, the diesal powered one.
Had only 90 horsepower, but 155 lb torque.

So I'm wondering why is this? I know torque pulls and if 'm not mistaken HP is something about top speed(?)
Is this car quick? Or is it relatively slow?
My guess is that the 155 torque makes it quick but it has low top end speed. If so, how good and how quick is this thing?

Sorry if it sounds stupid, but I'm not too car educated. The 90 hp seems low but it looks like it would be rather quick with the torque.

 

[RichardR]

In stock form the ALH TDIs aren't quick by any means, especially from a stop. 0-60 times for the manual trans cars are usually quoted in the 10.5s range, the automatics are more like 0-0 as the transmission explodes. Once you get rolling they're just fine though, and they have no problems whatsoever merging or keeping up with traffic.

Dies - E - ls will always have more torque than HP due to their low revving nature.

These cars weren't built to be quick, they were built to pull 50+mpg on the highway.