VW Phaeton -original post date 4/12/2013

 

The Volkswagen Phaeton: The name itself is an abject lesson in why you ought not to even dream of handing over the keys of a beast like this to some pimply-faced teenager with a learner's permit. Phaeton, you see, is a figure of Greek mythology. He was the son of Helios, titan sun god. One day, young Phaeton managed to pester his dad enough that old man Helios caved in and decided to hand over the reigns to the sun chariot so sonny boy could take it for a spin. Phaeton had little more than pulled out of the driveway at Mount Olympus when he lost control of the blasted thing, overwhelmed as he was, by the awesome power of such a contraption.

So we've got Phaeton careening recklessly around in the sun chariot, and setting crap on fire left and right -in fact, he managed to scorch a rather large section of the African continent, turning it to desert. This didn't go unnoticed by Zeus, god of, well, everything, and supernatural traffic cop extraordinaire. He took one look at what this Phaeton kid was doing to all of the earthly stuff Zeus was supposed to be in charge of, and he was pissed. But what to do? After all, lecturing the kid that "this is why we can't have nice things" wasn't going to stop the rampage. That kid and his chariot were so out of control, he couldn't stop long enough to listen to anything like that. -And Zeus may have been a god, but he wasn't stupid enough to throw himself in front of the freakin' sun chariot, so he was left with only one option. He blasted Phaeton with one of his patented Greek God thunderbolts, smiting him dead.

After Phaeton's untimely demise, Zeus must have felt bad about how it all went down, and so he placed Phaeton among the stars, where he is now the constellation we call Auriga, also known as "the charioteer".

A pretty dramatic bit of back story, don't you think? But this doesn't look like a particularly dramatic car. So what's the deal with it? I mean, "Auriga"? That translates into "the shining" -not the Jack Nicholson movie, but something actually shining and glowing. What's so shiny about the VW Phaeton? Well, let's find out.

I'm not sure of the model year Phaeton I snapped in my photograph, but since it's parked along a street in the US, it's got to be from somewhere between 2004-2006. These are uncommon cars that were only offered for sale in the US for a brief span of years. It didn't sell well, though by most accounts, these are lovely cars. So lovely, that while the Phaeton left the US market, it remained in production and for sale elsewhere throughout the world -they've been selling quite well in China, in fact.

Here's something else -the Phaeton is coming back to the states in 2015 according to what I've heard. But will car buyers in the US go for it? After all, we snubbed it once. American car buyers have long enjoyed the exclusivity of luxury divisions supplying badges and names to their cars that differ from the everyday vehicles surrounding them. The Phaeton shares a platform with an Audi R8, but will a slightly lower price point inspire buyers to splash out on a car for the sake of having a vehicle that's high class but low key? The target buyer for this car is probably the same bunch of people who would consider purchasing the Hyundai Equus.

The Phaeton pictured here was of an era when these cars were available with 2 engine options: a 4.2L V8 good for 335HP and 317 lb ft of torque. The other option was a 6.0L W12 -haven't mentioned one of those before on Car Du Jour, have I? Really, it's not so much a W shape -which would imply that you took 2 V6 engines and connected them at the top. It's more of a V nestled within a V configuration for this W12. There are 2 banks of cylinders in VW's W12, and each bank has 2 rows of 3 cylinders for a grand total of 12.

So, what can the W12 do? 444HP and 406 lb ft of torque, that' what. All while slugging down copious amounts of premium fuel, mind you, for 12 MPG city and 18 HWY. Filling the tank of a Phaeton doesn't sound like much fun, but talk to somebody who owns one of these, and you'll get the impression that the car has enough positive attributes to make that drawback something that can be overlooked. And while not particularly flashy, the Phaeton can hold its own in the looks department. Heck, I spotted this one from a block away on an overcast, sleeting day in Minneapolis. This may not look like the sun chariot, but it's not meant to. It's all about under the radar luxury. It just happens to have a flashy name.