The Volkswagen Passat W8 was a bizarre automobile when it was first launched, and it’s even weirder now that many of the W8 Passats have both grenaded themselves or turned too costly to keep up and ended up getting misplaced. This one, nevertheless, is an impossibly well-kept and low-mileage instance of considered one of Volkswagen’s most peculiar choices, and it’s presently listed on the market with no reserve on Carry A Trailer.
Volkswagen’s mid-size Passat sedan was meant to compete with America’s favourite household automobiles just like the Toyota Camry and Honda Accord, but it surely wasn’t sufficient for the evil mastermind behind Volkswagen’s most absurd automobiles, Ferdinand Piëch, the grandson of Ferdinand Porsche. Piëch believed VW wanted to maneuver upmarket, and he was the orchestrator of different unprecedented Volkswagens just like the S-Class competitor Phaeton and the flowery and extreme Touareg SUV. The W8 Passat was introduced alongside to supply consumers a step under the Phaeton govt sedan, however time hasn’t been variety to the W8 motor.
The Passat was the one automobile ever produced with this wacky W-shaped eight-cylinder engine, and it was the primary of the VW Group’s W-shaped line of engines that ultimately grew to incorporate a W12 and a W16. The W8 was a little bit of a Dr. Frankenstein challenge, fashioned by taking two of Volkswagen’s revered narrow-angle VR6 engines, lopping two cylinders off each, and melding the 2 halves collectively.
It was provided from 2001 to 2004, with commonplace all-wheel drive and both a 5-speed automated transmission or a 6-speed guide transmission like this instance. The 4.0-liter W8 engine produced 270 horsepower and 273 pound-feet of torque, which wasn’t notably outstanding and didn’t lead to particularly robust efficiency numbers. The W8 was properly regarded for its silky easy operation and rev-happy demeanor, but it surely price an absurd sum of money, round $40,000 when new within the early 2000s. Accounting for inflation, that’s about $68,000 in 2024 for a Passat.
So even when new, the W8 Passat was an costly, uncommon and distinctive automobile with a one-of-a-kind engine. Quick ahead 20 years, and the considered sustaining an eight-cylinder German automobile with such a bespoke motor has my pockets trembling. This explicit automobile, although, is an exceptionally well-kept, low-mile instance, so perhaps it’s the one W8 Passat value shopping for? Test it out on Carry A Trailer.
