Volkswagen Passat R36 2008 review

You take an unassuming passenger car, harden up its drivetrain and ramp up performance. You add visual appeal with go fast bits and badges. And you wind up with an embellished shopping trolley or worse, you get a crass dork in a bad suit; like the TRD Aurion.

So why does the latest edition of Volkswagen's R series convince in a way that the models preceding it in the distinctively deep blue paint and chrome grille haven't? If the Passat R36 followed the form book, we'd be saying the currently top whack Passat sits too close for the R version to offer sufficient reason to spend the extra thousands.

And for what, exactly? Both cars have part-time all-wheel-drive, twin clutch gearbox and a direct injection V6, it's just that the R engine has 400cc more.

Explore the 2008 Volkswagen Passat range

• Volkswagen Passat 2008 review
• Volkswagen Passat R36 2008 review

Somehow though, the R car, at least in the wagon form we sampled, does it in a way the other Rs don't. It helps not a little that the regular Passat is visually anonymous, so the blue paint and shiny bits at least make it less indistinct. As does the interior statement, with suede-like inners on the leather seats and a lovely, fist-filling steering wheel.

While calling it the “sportiest Passat of all time” is a bit like claiming to be the fittest player at the local bowling club, the R36 has the output and performance figures to make it quite the Wolfsburger in chic clothing. On the whole this fitness is wasted in a country without autobahns. Still, the 220kW/350Nm on tap can shove this near 1.8-tonner from standing to 100km/h in less than six seconds.

Unlike the 3.2 V6 in the regular Passat, that torque arrives later in the piece, making this an engine to rev and it goes appreciably harder to towards to the top of the rev range.

DSG has never captivated us to the extent it has many of our fellow hacks, being as ever apt to over-ride your gear selections even in manual or sport mode. Best leave it in Drive, where it's an adroit conductor. You can always effect temporary manual over-ride, using the left paddle shifter to engine brake, shortly after which it resumes automatic mode.

Essentially the R36 is a big, secure cruiser, entering a corner like the powerful front driver it essentially is, transferring torque to the back axle via the Haldex coupling. Feel through the wheel is adequate, if muted, the position from which you command it is excellent.

The assertiveness and composure with which it shoots out of the bend is abetted by the sonorous note of an engine that's more usually found in VW Group SUVs and Porsche's Cayenne.

That's just one reason why this cargo carrying R car kills off any logical reason to go down the Touareg route.

The other is monumental cargo capacity (near enough 1800 litres with the back seats flat).

The weekend excursion from the city really is the R36's milieu.

Because, although the ride on anything but the smoothest blacktop is terse, even irritating, this is a car capable of dispatching family business in comfort while imbuing the ageing chap behind the wheel with at least the notional ability to step over obnoxious youths in their thrusty rice rockets.

It's that breadth of ability which makes this R car that bit special.

Bottom Line

Volkswagen's only current R edition that justifies the spend.