Volkswagen Passé

The new for 2012 VW Passat also follows Volkswagen’s new North American strategy of offering more for less. While the Jetta is basically them same car they get overseas (with a much worse interior), the Americanized Passat is an entirely different beast. While they get a reworked version of the current Passat, we get a completely new supersize version - presumably for our supersized, McDonald’s feed American (and Canadian) asses.



While the interior doesn’t suffer the same air of cheapness of the Jetta, the exterior does share a family resemblance. And in doing so, this is a very generic looking car. It’s not hideous, but there aren’t many positive adjectives that can be used to describe it either. From it’s vaguely Accord looking face to it’s vaguely Chevrolet Impala looking greenhouse, the look comes off as inoffensive (and a bit dated) looking clone hoping to gain sales by looking enough like the big sellers. Plus they might be trying to morph this apple strudel into looking enough like an apple pie to warm over some of the more jaded buyers that tend to only buy American.



Still though, it’s classy in a very retrained way and far from fugly. Had the 2008 Accord looked like this when it debuted instead of having it’s quasi-Bangle-butt, it would have been commended.

BMVW

If the BMW kidney grilles are held in by zip ties, it's a sure sign that you're looking at the real deal.

VolksBling

There was a time when Volkswagens were no-nonesense German transportation for the masses. And I’m not talking decades ago either.

In the last generation Passat and the facelift of the last generation Jetta, there was a frightening change in the styling. Chrome. Yes - they started sprucing up their models by not-so-liberally slapping chrome everywhere they could. It’s most obvious in the Jetta, as it was basically the same car with chrome bands added to the bumpers, bump strips on the doors and the grille (the Passat had a facelift along with the chromification so it wasn't as obvious or lame). Refer to the top pic for the Jetta chromification. I was frightened things would get worse, and the classic looks of Volkswagens would be ruined forever under a sea of 1950-70’s era chrome appendages that plagued American cars.





I did get worse, but in another way as well.

Slightly evident in their last generations, Volkswagens were moving upscale into a "mini-Audi" realm. The Jetta had much more content and luxury than previous generations, and the last gen Passat actually used a stretched Audi A4 platform. And of course their prices were rising too. However, now they even LOOK like Audis. Chrome slathered Audis.





It started in the new Jetta. Well - technically in the new Golf GTI that hasn’t come over yet. It’s that damn Audi "horse collar" grille. Except on Audi’s it most often looks good, and on Volkswagens it looks out of place, particularly on the Jetta/Golf. Like it was stuck on as an afterthought. The Jetta is worse off than the Golf (in fact, the basic Golfs have no Audi-grille at all). The Jetta is mainly built for North America, and it seems that therefore it must have tons of chrome. Mainly in the form of the Audi-takeoff grille and the tacky clear lense taillights. The GTI/GLI is possibly even worse off, as it grille shape is accentuated by black paint that just looks cheap.





While overall the look of the Jetta isn’t bad, it doesn't seem to look like a Volkswagen to me. It looks Japanese. The whole body save the front end looks almost like a Toyota Corolla. And those clear-lense taillights look needlessly elaborate (but then I suppose the whole car exterior is needlessly elaborate). That taillight trend started with the Toyota Altezza and in my opinion should have died a long time ago.

The new Passat looks a bit more cohesive, but at the same time looks all that much more like an Audi. In particular, the A6.



I guess all this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but what ever happened to the time when a brand had it’s own identity and style, instead of stealing someone else glory (even if it is a sister company)?