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Best Station Wagon: Volkswagen Passat
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February 14, 2002: 10:37 a.m. ET
Here's a wagon that actually manages to be both cool and affordable.
By Jerry Edgerton
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NEW YORK (Money Magazine) - You say sport utilities are too aggressive, too gas-greedy. Minivans are too - uh -- wimpy? Pile your gear into a Passat station wagon. Thanks to a combination of merit and clever advertising, VWs are cool -- besides, a Passat wagon is just too sleek for condescension.
Like all VWs, the Passat wagon is built for drivers. Responsive steering moves you smoothly in and out of traffic and straightens out those curves on the road to the beach. Quick anti-lock brakes add to your confidence behind the wheel. Plus the sibling Passat sedan scored Best Pick in its class in Insurance Institute of Highway Safety crash tests. (Wagons were not tested but tend to react like their sedan counterparts.)
Looks and performance are reason enough to get a Passat wagon. But since you gotta haul, its 56.6 cubic feet of cargo space (nearly as much as some small sport utilities provide) will do the job. Reasonably good negotiators can get this wagon for about $600 over dealer cost. That translates to around $28,500 for the GLX version with a standard V-6 engine.
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