Volkswagen Arteon Shooting Brake 1.4 TSI eHybrid 2020 first drive

The Volkswagen Arteon heralded a much sharper look and greater sales impetus than the old CC when it arrived in 2017. Yet its appeal was limited to a fastback body, which just couldn’t provide the practicality that many potential buyers sought.

Now that issue has been resolved with the Arteon Shooting Brake, an unusually extroverted Volkswagen that combines the visual elegance of a coupé with the versatility of an estate.

To the subtle design changes of the newly facelifted Arteon fastback, the Shooting Brake adds a unique rear end, comprising a longer roofline, a more tapered glasshouse, prominent D-pillars and an angled tailgate. It’s therefore only in height where the siblings differ, the fastback being 1428mm tall and the estate 1447mm.

Both Arteon variants are offered here with four revised turbocharged four-cylinder engines. These are a 148bhp 1.5-litre petrol, a 188bhp 2.0-litre petrol and 2.0-litre diesels making 148bhp and 197bhp. All get front-wheel drive and, in most cases, the choice of a six-speed manual or seven-speed dual-clutch gearbox.

Also coming, although not until next spring, are the new Arteon R and Arteon Shooting Brake R, which run the familiar EA888 2.0-litre four-pot turbo engine, making 316bhp.

However, it’s the new eHybrid driven here that’s of greatest interest to most customers. It uses the plug-in hybrid drivetrain of the Passat GTE, with a 154bhp 1.4-litre four-cylinder turbo petrol engine and a 113bhp gearbox-mounted electric motor.

Energy for this is provided by a 13.0kWh battery mounted in the boot floor, yielding an electric-only range of up to 33 miles at speeds up to 87mph, contributing handsomely to official CO2 emissions of just 25g/km.

As with the Passat GTE, you can jump in the Arteon eHybrid and drive off without giving it much thought at all. Provided the battery has enough charge, it always starts and moves off silently, motivated by electrons alone.

To get the best out of it, though, it pays to get familiar with the driving modes, of which there are plenty. Along with the Eco, Comfort, Normal and Sport found in all Arteons fitted with adaptive dampers, there are an extra three for the eHybrid: E-mode for electric-only running, Hybrid for a combination of engine and motor and GTE for maximum performance.

Step-off and urban acceleration are reasonably strong in E-mode. And there’s next to no mechanical drag, other than when gentle regenerative braking kicks in as you go downhill.