Volkswagen Passat. Farewell. Management Fleet

We bid farewell to the Volkswagen Passat, not the most scintillating of vehicles but all you will ever need.

Goodbye, trusty Volkswagen. You were not the most exciting of cars, but hot damn you were useful. With your comfortable ride and excellent Bluetooth phone music-reading skills, you provided an excellent day-to-day motoring experience. And your capacious boot could swallow a horse. Well, probably. A large stringed instrument though, for sure. And a photographer on crankandpiston photo shoots.

We’ve spent three months with the Passat – three months that saw, if we’re honest, little excitement from people before they drove it, but then raised eyebrows and impressed faces after the fact. Several members of the team spent time in the car, and all of them came back commenting on how much better it was than they expected.

The name Passat doesn’t conjure up much enthusiasm, even if our test car is named Sport (more for trim than performance promises). But it delivers on everything it’s realistically going to need in the real world. People don’t buy a Passat for scintillating performance or handling, but it’s not bad at either of those things. Sure, it’s tuned for comfort more than cornering, and the steering is somewhat vague compared to a Golf, but it whips around U-turns well and you never feel disconnected from what’s going on underneath you.

The five-cylinder engine pulls strongly when you’re firing the VW onto the freeway, or whipping past a truck on a single lane road. And honestly, that’s all you need it for. It doesn’t spark the desire to drive into the mountains on a weekend, but it does have understated good looks, exceedingly comfortable seats, and a thoroughly decent stereo. And during our time with the car, we had absolutely no issues at all.

This is the reliable, practical, well-made saloon that comes with everything you would need for stress-free motoring. For all crankandpiston’s focus on cars that set our world on fire, sometimes you just want a cocoon for the commute, and for the money, there’s not much better than the Passat.

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