Volkswagen is very good at refining its products and making them ever so slightly better from generation to generation. This, of course, forces the consumer to periodically walk back into the showroom and plunk down their hard-earned cash for the latest greatest, which is actually only marginally better than what they were driving before. The new MkVI Golf is even more polished than the MkV, the Touraeg2 is just a little better than the original, and so on. The differences aren’t huge, it’s more like a 10% improvement. This has resulted in a maniacal following for the entry-level German marque because this process makes Volkswagens reliably, errr, reliable.
Still, VW has people within its organization who have red blood, not ones and zeros, pumping through their veins. These people made the original Scirocco, and more recently, the new Scirocco. For the most part though, these people are shuffled around to other parts of the VAG empire if they start getting too creative. For proof, just look at Ferdinand Piech’s move to Bugatti after his stint with VW (he was behind the Phaeton and the Veyron). So it was with a measure of surprise that I learned VW was once again aiming for the big guns with a new Passat variant, the CC. Not since the Phaeton aimed between the eyes of the Audi A8 has VW made such a bold move upmarket. The Phaeton was all about substance over style though, and we all know how that ended for them. Will Volkswagen be more successful with the style-centric Passat CC?