What is it?
This is a top-of-the-line Volkswagen Passat with a sporty yet also quite stealthy styling kit, and pretty much all of the available technological trimmings lavished as standard.
The R-Line Edition limited-series Passat comes in Estate form only, and only in ‘moonstone grey’ with black 19in alloy wheels and matching gloss black body trim. It was an anniversary present of a sort given by VW to Passat devotees worldwide, and was announced at the 2019 Geneva motor show at the same time that the facelifted eighth-generation car was given its global debut. Its appearance also roughly coincided with VW’s making of the 30-millionth new car to wear a Passat name badge.
The car is available with a choice of 237bhp 2.0-litre turbodiesel or 268bhp 2.0-litre turbo petrol engines, both getting 4Motion four-wheel drive as standard and the latter being marginally the less expensive; but neither being anything close to cheap. For the near-£44k of our petrol-engined test car, after all, you could get a perfectly serviceable Audi A6 with almost the same engine.
But then VW’s UK distributor only has 150 Passat R-Line Editions to sell in total, and shouldn’t struggle to find that many buyers who like understated, four-wheel drive performance wagons in general, and perhaps Passats in particular.
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Far too expensive
a well specced V60 T5 R-Design with a few tasy added extras is a lot cheaper and better looking, as well as being a more modern design.
Skoda superb
Point missed
Surely somebody in the market for a Passat estate would be looking esactly for that - a large family car. To draw comparisons with a 3-series is a little poinltess in this respect - they're aimed at different markets, and the 3-series has a significantly smaller interior, meaning that it wouldn't necessarily be under consideration.