I stayed up late last night. Well, into the early hours of this morning to be precise.

Usually I reserve this for major sporting events. For example, I remember an 11-year-old me getting up to watch the 1986 Australian Grand Prix, hoping for my hero Nigel Mansell to clinch the Formula 1 title and watching in disbelief as his tyre blew on the main straight.

On this occasion, though, it wasn’t sport that kept me glued to my laptop screen, but Volkswagen, which has just suffered a blow-up of a very different kind.

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The German manufacturer became embroiled in a massive scandal over fudged emissions tests during the weekend.

I bet some of the key European execs breathed a sigh of relief that it didn’t blow up a few days earlier at the start of the Frankfurt motor show.

Their Volkswagen of America colleagues were not so fortunate. Yesterday in the docklands area of Brooklyn, New York there was an event to launch the facelifted 2016 US-spec Volkswagen Passat.

Previous iterations of the Passat fitted with the 2.0-litre TDI engine are at the heart of the emissions cheating scandal, but Volkswagen had flown in guests from all over the world, so couldn’t exactly cancel the shindig despite the emerging crisis.

However, two of the companies key executives, Herbert Diess, chairman of the VW brand’s management board, and Heinz-Jakob Neusser, VW’s board member in charge of technical development, did pull out.

That left poor old Michael Horn, president and CEO of Volkswagen of America, to face the music. Well, he and Lenny Kravitz, who was rolled out as a bit of light relief.

So I stayed up late and went online to see what was said by Horn. Obviously he had time to prepare because Volkswagen has been aware of the EPA's findings for a few weeks. To his credit, though, he plunged straight in at the start of his address.

"Our company was dishonest. We totally screwed up and are deeply sorry. We will do everything we can to make things right,” he admitted, while cutting a rather lonely figure on the large stage.

He went on to describe the 2016 Passat as “a car built in America by Americans for Americans”, although it’s unlikely that this statement will conjure up much patriotic fervour among the customers right now.