Smooth, intelligent, practical, that’s the Volkswagen Arteon, a sporty ‘shooting brake’.
No, more like a car that can transport a good deal of family luggage as they head off on holiday. The boot is indeed a good size, as is the interior generally. The first impression of the latest Arteon (Volkswagen introduced them originally in 2017) is of the generous glossy black styling; Volkswagen likes this at the moment, as evidenced by the electric ID car range.
The mid-range performer 1.4-litre eHybrid powered our test car. This combination has plenty of oomph, 218PS, in fact, that can propel the car to 62 mph in 7.9 seconds. Its electric-only range is claimed to be up to 38 miles.
Fuel consumption: we were unable to measure this, but it would probably be similar to another VW group car, our Cupra Formentor test car with the same drive-train, that recorded an overall 46.1 mpg.
A drive around the pleasant country roads of Oxfordshire and through charming villages enhanced the feel-good factor that the Arteon provided on the day of our drive. The ride was very comfortable, with well-furnished seats; steering, handling and braking were up to the standard to be expected. The DSG automatic gearbox remains smoothly impressive.
Look down the long list of equipment and you can’t fail to be impressed. Connectivity and driver assistance systems are plentiful. On the road, the Arteon did its autonomous work quite unobtrusively and thankfully free of those unnecessary warning alarms each time any lane departure was sorted out. However, as usual, although there is more than there was originally in the Arteon, the prices do get nudged up bit by bit. It turned out that, literally, on the bottom line of all the paperwork describing every aspect of the car was the price: our test car was priced at £50,965, with around £6000 of this being optional extras.
A final note: congratulations to Volkswagen on producing cars with a carbon-neutral footprint soon.
Tom Scanlan
Motoring Journalist
Tom Scanlan has written for a wide variety of magazines and newspapers, particularly the Reading Evening Post for ten years, having got into motoring journalism in 1973 via the somewhat unlikely back door of the British Forces Broadcasting Service. BFBS produced a weekly radio motoring show for the services overseas and Tom produced it, as well as interviewing experts and eventually reporting on cars.
He is into classic cars and has owned Porsche, Ferrari, pre-war Alvis and Rileys and currently owns his fifth old Alfa Romeo, a 1984 GTV 2.0.
In his spare time, Tom is a professional cricket coach.
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