RoadTest: Volkswagen Passat: An ego can be dangerous in any business.
Take Volkswagen - fed up with VW's "common" reputation, boss Ferdinand Piech decreed a luxury flagship.
Being Ferdinand Porsche's grandson, he clearly had luxury in his blood. Polos and Golfs didn't do it for him, even if they brought in cash by the shedful.
So the Phaeton was born in 2002 at the Geneva motor show, and Piech predicted annual sales of 20,000. The flying Pigs were already circling as he left the Swiss city.
Million were spent developing the flagship, including a new €186 million plant, but it's all been yet another white elephant. Piech is gone and the Phaeton has been the flop everyone predicted.
The experience has left its legacy in the new Passat, as VW tries to become more of a quality brand. This is important as its Skoda sister comes up with seriously good value mainstream cars.
As they went to work on the new Passat, the designers knew they could lift some of the Phaeton design cues.
With the great Beetle great days long passed, VW can hardly be described as revolutionary. Its current - now old - Passat was about as inspiring as a telephone box. Yet, when you look at the competition, you realise how important it actually was. Everyone copied a bit of it - and, if imitation is the highest form of flattery, VW must be very proud of the Toyota Avensis.
But what do you do when someone imitates your look, while adding rock solid reliability and better pricing? Stumped, VW has been forced to change attitude.
In design, it's not a million miles from the previous model, but park it next to the Phaeton and you see, instead of the chubby central cabin, a sleeker saloon look. And, like everyone else these days, VW has made the car bigger.
The new Passat has 28mm of added length, giving more legroom in the back and more space in the already enormous boot - fold the back seats down and, apart from limited entry and height, this could challenge a van on load-lugging. That's besides the handful of spacious cubbyholes in the cabin. Sadly, there's only an extra 3mm of headroom - about equal to a week's hair growth, but even the rear has decent adult headroom.
Up front, new bonnet creases converge at the more prominent grille with a football-size VW badge. It's a striking look, not quite as avant garde as the basking shark snout of Peugeot's 407, but about as radical as VW could get given its conservative audience.
The roofline sweeps like its predecessor, but the rear is more Phaeton-like, particularly the stylised light clusters.
Interior trim, with cues from the Phaeton, is perhaps the greatest improvement. The angled dials placed in "burr walnut", standard from Comfortline up, give a real quality feel. The central console and switchgear is also far more Phaeton than Passat.
Our car was the 1.6-litre FSi - VW's system of squirting fuel straight into the chamber means that the FSI can run on a lean air-to-fuel ratio. The result is a pretty fuel-efficient engine.
A downside is that it's a lot less discreet about the work it's doing - by about 4,000 revs the engine noise starts to seep back into the cabin. By working the 6-speed gearbox, you can keep it to a minimum. Our car was more than able to potter through town traffic, but long treks on so-called national routes may need the 1.8-litre for added pep.
The new transverse engine format has no detrimental impact on handling. The car corners well, thanks in part to its electronic stability programme. Steering is well-weighted and overall it has good poise on the road.
VW claims the new Passat is 10 per cent more torsionally rigid, making it "a stiffer, safer, quieter vehicle which is more refined on the road". We'd concur with some if not all of the points, but overall we found the ride quality perfectly suited to Irish roads.
A niggling problem - at the international launch an astute colleague pointed out that water rested on the glass of the wing mirrors in the rain, leaving them virtually useless. Engineers responded that they were looking at the problem and it would be sorted by the time the cars arrived on the market.
Well, it isn't. During a summer downpour last week we had to depend on our rearview mirror as water clung stubbornly to the wing mirror glass. It may seem petty but it's very annoying on a car that starts at €25,555.
Another niggle - the parking brake which is now operated by a dash button. Premium gadgetry in a fleet car? Well, it's all very fancy, but it just doesn't give the same control as a conventional lever.
The Passat is a fleet player, so many purchase decisions will be made without concern for servicing and repair costs. However, these are major issues for those putting up their own cash and VW has missed the boat by keeping its warranty at 2-year unlimited mileage compared to Toyota's 3-years/100,000km on the Avensis.
VW executives in Ireland say there has been a change of attitude at Wolfsburg. Arrogance is out the window, as they realise that the competition has seriously caught up on quality and image. VW has also had some embarrassing reliability issues of late.
But relatively competitive pricing should woo some customers back to the fold.
The 407 may be more visually striking, the Mondeo more fun to drive, but the Passat incorporates elements of both.
If your wallet can stretch only to entry level cars, you'd be better going for the impressive Skoda Octavia. If you've got the cash for the range-toppers, you'll probably go for a premium marque.
But, in the middle, the heartland of its buyers, the new Passat is an all-rounder that we'd be happy to drive.
