Volkswagen Arteon Shooting Brake, style meets practical
There comes a time in every man’s life, usually, that's thanks to the “Lady of the house”, when he must trade pleasure for usefulness. Fortunately, useful doesn’t translate into boring. Let alone ugly. The Volkswagen Arteon Shooting Brake is the perfect example.
The Mercedes-Benz CLS Shooting Brake (X218), Mercedes-Benz CLA Shooting Brake, Kia ProCeed, Porsche Panamera Sport Turismo, and now this Volkswagen Arteon Shooting Brake. All with the same recipe and all extremely beautiful. The practical side of an estate with the looks and lines of a coupe. What could go wrong?
Those lines
In 2017, Volkswagen introduced the Arteon to replace the Passat CC and Phaeton. One car at the top of the Volkswagen-ladder (excluding SUVs). Together with a refreshment -facelift- in 2020, Volkswagen showed the world their new Arteon Shooting Brake. I’m looking at the front of the car and can’t see any difference with the “normal” Arteon. That ain’t a bad thing. The Arteon is such a beautiful car and certainly with the clean R-line front bumper. New on the facelift, is the LED-day running lights heading from the left to the right only interrupted by the new VW-logo in the middle. The car even looks wider than it feels thanks to that day running light.
Moving on to the side and thinking out loud: “What stands out the most? The “Kings Red Metallic” color? The 20-inch Nashville rims? Or the absolute immensity (4.8 meters) off the car?” All jokes aside, each of these features fits the car and makes it a perfect whole. At the back, the biggest difference, except the big butt, for the facelift are the rear lights with a new LED design. Choosing the R-line package gives the car a chrome exhaust finisher on both sides.
You feel the exterior inside
It has been a long time for us that a car’s exterior has been translated into the inside of that car like this. But what do we mean by that? Wherever you open the car -in the front, rear, or even the booth- the car is extremely spacious. If you sat behind the steering wheel it feels like your in a boat, in the back you have as much legroom as in a Rolls-Royce, and in the booth, you can easily fit everything you need for your holiday in the South of France with the children. With his 565 liters -and maximum 1.623 liters-, the Arteon is only outgunned by the Mercedes E-Class Estate and Skoda SuperB Combi. On space, the two kings in this class.
On the inside, you are welcomed by the luxury and quality which we are used to, and expect, from Volkswagen after all these years. A clean and easy-to-use 10,24-inch digital screen you can adapt with all the information you could dream off and a navigation system is tucked away in the center, sadly no GoogleMaps integration (that would be a nice extra). In front of that, a nice developed steering wheel with touchscreen buttons of the kind we also find on the center console. You operate everything via either the touchscreen or touch-based surfaces. There's adjustable ambient lighting, and strange-looking, but awesome sitting R-line sport seats. Strange looking? We just need to point out one thing to make you understand: carbon-look leather.
The tank
As mentioned above, the car drives as it looks: BIG. The first miles in the car gave us a feeling of its size, especially the width was a bit worrying. But after only a few hours, the Arteon Shooting Brake grew on us and shrank into a Golf-sized Volkswagen. No doubt all those driving aids helped a hand with that feeling. Lane assist, adaptive cruise control, cruise control that adapts to an oncoming corner, Front Assist braking system, Area View (360° camera), and a Park Assist will make you look like a better driver than you really are.
Moving through all the different driving settings, there is just one you really need to avoid: the ECO-one. Comfort: great, Sport: nice and Individual: if you get this wrong, it’s your fault. But that ECO, stay away from it cause it makes the car boring and slow. You might be kinder to the environment, but you're killing the fun. The 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder produces 190 PS and 320 Nm of torque at 1.500 RPM. With the help of the 7-speed DSG and front-wheel-drive, 0-100 km/h is dealt with in 7.8 seconds and on to a top speed of 233 km/h. Numbers you can surely live with in day-to-day use. And being a responsible daddy, I never wished for more grunt. Especially with an average consumption of just 7,6 liters per 100 km. Yes, yes, that’s almost 2 liters more than the 5.8 liters Volkswagen claims.
But seriously, that 190 horsepower is really enough to enjoy your daily commute, and in combination with the sublime DSG-gearbox, every traffic jam gets a little bit more acceptable. And Finally out of the traffic jam, you can attack the corners and you can even enjoy yourself as long as you anticipate on the body roll. The only thing we would lose are those 20-inch rims, 18’ would be just fine, to improve the comfort and drive quality.
The car for the people …
That’s what Volkswagen was and should be, a car for the people! But let’s be honest: 41.200 euro for the cheapest Arteon Shooting Brake is pretty steep. Our car easily passes the 60K mark, only to stop at 63.735 euro (BE). I really love the styling, the space, and the drive quality of the car and that’s the more reason why it hurts to say: I would never, never buy one new. They are just too expensive for me, despite its looks and its immense practicality. So if you have that kind of money and you don’t mind spending it on something labeled as a Volkswagen? Go look at this Arteon, it can easily compete with the other Germans.
