2015 VW Passat Goes To Infinity And Beyond On A Single Tank

YOU CAN brand anything these days: the latest packaging of Marlboros proves it. No longer content with claiming each pack contains a score of fags, twenty has been rebranded as 19+1. I saw the same quirk in a toy store where a quartet of balls was described 3+1. If the Volkswagen Passat were accurately named, you might want to call it the Volkswagen Diesel. Every model bar the R will need filling at black pumps. Not that that would be very often, with over 1000 miles available on a tank. How long before cars are brimmed only during their annual service?

There is a strong sense of advancement with this model, not just stylized futurism. Volkswagen went down that path with the Eighties B3 Passat: no grille, badge flush within a painted snout denoting an obvious aero-advancement that was bang on trend courtesy of the Ford Sierra. At the rear, horizontally banded lamps made everything chic and wide, and to cap it off the name ‘Passat’ was stamped into the body, no additional badges here. That was a feature filled past, when you could point at a detail and say ‘Ah. That represents such-and-such.’ You might struggle to find any one feature on the new Passat that stands out, yet the overall impression is as strong at the B3 was.

Nowadays it all comes down to form and proportions, and here the Passat is meticulous and striking respectively. Width and wheels maketh a car’s desirability, and VW has taken a chest-pull and stretched it right across the front end. I don’t like the latest theme of the lamps floating above the base of the overall graphic, but there’s no doubting the impression of superb ground-to-body relationship. Low roof-line and fast screen angle reinforces that sense of confident advancement.

The bodyside should be the cars trump car, and it certainly one VW is making good use of on the perfect (except for the headlamps) Golf SV. I was quite curious at first to see VW do emotion. You don’t expect to see a judge smile. Here they seem to have tentatively felt their way from a conventional all-positive section, before taking a rake and hollowing the shoulder. The result is fast and taut, and just enough to lighten the cars sobriety in the company of increasingly gestural rivals without losing the holier-than-thou perception of quality.

The Passat is an impressive design no doubt that will fend off the Koreans and makes the Ford Mondeo seem tall and under-wheeled, but it misses the dynamism of BMW and the status of Mercedes. Perhaps rebranding it as an Audi will help.