VW’s epic “W” Story

Chapter 2 – The fashionabily mundane Passat W8

The Passat has been a reliable family runabout ever since its inception back in the early 70s. The Passat has established itself as an affordable full-sized sedan that owes its success to its practical, frugal, and functional packaging which offers far better value than its other German rivals such as BMWs and Mercedes. But let’s face it the Passat was always considered more of an “adult car” or a “sensible dad car” and it was never really something out of a petrol heads bucket list. But the Passat has more than a couple of tricks up its sleeve to settle this misconception. 

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The Passat, one of VW’s group’s most popular global platforms was sold in numerous body styles from the stylish CC Coupe to the suburbia-friendly wagon, but VW, known for its over-engineering prowess, is known to go overboard even with their seemingly modest entry-level models. So when it came to giving one of their best-selling platforms a fast model since all of its rivals had one, VW did no shy away from over-engineering that either. 

Enter the most underrated wagon from Wolfsburg, the Passat W8 Wagon. A car so crucial for the brand that it lends the basis for what would later give rise to Bentley’s W12 and Bugatti’s W16.

Under the hood of this seemingly understated wagon (manufactured from 2001 to 2004) sat an engine that can only be described as “experimental” at best. The W8 or the WR8 where the R stands for Reihenmotor which means inline in German was essentially two VR-6s with two cylinders chopped off, glued together at a 72-degree angle onto a single crankshaft. This engine only put out 270 horsepower which isn’t much considering its 4.0 Liter displacement but the focus with this motor was not performance but to get the seamless thrust throughout the powerband (which was required for luxury cars like the Phaeton and Bentleys) that the engine delivered. 

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This engine was not frugal by any means and at $40,000 even the vehicle it came with did not seem like a wise financial decision at the time. The company only managed to sell 1277 units in the US out of which only 10 are known to carry an old-school stick shifter (which if can find today, will be an absolute goldmine).

The W8 engine had no other purpose but to prove a point, that it was possible and this is made clear by its short-lived production run of just 4-years. A W8 engine with less than 300 horsepower was never destined for unmatched success, no sir, it was just to see how half a Bugatti engine would fair in the real world and if it did, it could be easily scaled up to fit Veyron’s application, and what better way to test it than put it in an econobox that would have to take all sorts of punishments from the school run to grocery shopping and the occasional cross-country trip to meet grandma and grandpa. 

And boy did that engine rise to the occasion. But after 15 years, it is safe to say the people who managed to hold on to their Passat W8 wagons have a future classic at their hands especially if it’s a manual.