CAR GAZING
CC shows Volkswagen's luxury side
Sleek sedan has the sensuous lines of a sports coupe
By Derek Price
After lunch one day last week, I walked into the parking lot, sat in the car and couldn't find where to put the key. The Volkswagen CC I was driving had an unusual electronic key that inserts into the dash, not the steering column.
Then I looked beside me and saw a woman's purse in the passenger seat, which is when I realized I wasn't in the Volkswagen at all. I was sitting in someone else's new Lexus.
That says a lot about how far Volkswagen's cars have come. The silver CC – a swoopy, sexy version of the Passat – looked so much like the silver Lexus GS sitting next to it that I totally confused the two when I wasn't paying attention.
The Volkswagen was just that good.
This awkwardly named CC, which stands for Comfort Coupe, isn't really a coupe at all. It just looks the part, taking the rather mundane looking Passat and giving it a lowered roofline and sleek, Porsche-like rear end that makes it far more stylish than an ordinary sedan. It has four doors but looks like it should have two.
It feels like a luxury car on the inside, too. Volkswagen, along with its sister brand Audi, continues its tradition of creating some of the most finely crafted interiors in today's cars. Materials are all soft to the touch and feel like they're assembled in one solid piece, without any wiggles or loose bits.
You can get some Lexus-like features in the CC, too, including a navigation system with a 32 GB hard disk, a rearview camera and parking sensors that help you squeeze into tight spots.
In base form, with a 2.0-liter turbocharged engine that makes 200 horsepower, the CC is actually a bargain, offering the sophistication and style of a German luxury car at a starting price of $27,100.
If you want V6 power, you'll have to pay more. A lot more.
The version powered by Volkswagen's 3.6-liter VR6 engine, which makes 280 horsepower, costs nearly $12,000 more than the four-cylinder car with a starting price of $38,700. That puts it closer to the range of a true European luxury car, but to be fair, it comes with an awful lot of standard equipment.
Interestingly, the CC feels like the spiritual successor to the Phaeton, Volkswagen's famously wonderful luxury sedan that was an enormous failure for the company. While it was one of the best luxury cars in the world, few people bought it because they didn't want to spend such big bucks for a car with a VW on the hood.
Still, the Phaeton's outstanding engineering, handling, cabin and quality seem to have filtered down to the smaller Passat-based CC.
If it means more people will be confusing a Volkswagen for a Lexus, that's a great thing.
(Derek Price is a newspaper editor and freelance writer living in Texas.)
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