Volkswagen Passat: The Passat wants to head upmarket. Does it have the substance?

摘要

This is the one that'll have the competition worried. Not just the traditional competition, either. The Volkswagen Passat has been troubling the large family car market for years, but this time VW isn't just targeting the Ford Mondeo and Vauxhall Insignia. Not when the wider Volkswagen Group now has a new Skoda Superb that will muscle its way farther into that market. No, this time, as well as competing against high-end large family cars, Volkswagen is ever more serious about pitching the Passat against compact executive cars such as the BMW 3 Series and Mercedes-Benz C-Class. The truth is that it's one of the few mainstream manufacturers with a sufficiently carefully nurtured brand cachet to do it.