Volkswagen Arteon R Shooting Brake review: a swift, suave estate to tempt you away from BMW
Volkswagen’s first attempt to convince us of the merits of one of its big, practical estate cars fitted with a potent engine appeared in 1989, in the form of the Passat GT 16v. An engine from the all-conquering Golf GTI 16v provided undeniable kudos, but it always felt slightly at odds with the Passat’s utilitarian aura. Sales success was elusive.
Undeterred, VW tried again in 1994 with the VR6 and again in 1998 with the V6 4Motion. While sales trickled in, the masses weren’t convinced to turn away from their six-cylinder BMW Touring estates.
Things got really serious in 2001, though, with the Passat W8. A 271bhp eight-cylinder engine meant it had the sort of power to outdrag some of the best performance cars of its time, yet it was indistinguishable from the standard car, save for the four exhausts poking out beneath the rear bumper – a true Q-car in every sense.
Yet still relatively few people were listening and the W8 breathed its last in 2005, but by 2008 VW was at it again, with the 296bhp Passat R36. As you might expect, it sold about three.
You would think that all this would be enough to deter Volkswagen’s product planners. But no. This time around, however, they have tried a different tack. No longer is the R badge affixed to the rump of a ubiquitous Passat, because now Volkswagen has the sleek Arteon Shooting Brake to play with. Question is: will that be enough to woo the buyers who’ve successfully resisted its siren song for the last 30-odd years?
Pros
Spacious interior
Extraordinary grip and traction
Generous kit list
Cons
Expensive
Fiddly switchgear
Firm ride on 20-inch wheels
Change of direction
The silhouette is different, but so is what’s under the skin. For the first time in a long time, the fast Pass… er, Arteon isn’t powered by a thumping V-engine. This is key, because one of the big distractions of its predecessors has always been that big lump of metal in the nose, pulling it on straight ahead like a vast horizontal counterweight when you want to go around a bend.
Instead, Volkswagen has gone back to first principles, once again nicking the engine from the fast Golf of the time, just as it did in 1989. The Arteon R is powered by Volkswagen’s now-venerable EA888 engine, a 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo that kicks out 316bhp, and drives all four wheels via a clever new four-wheel-drive set-up that not only shuffles power between the front and rear axles, but can also use electronically-controlled clutches to direct more power to one or other of the rear wheels.
So essentially the Arteon R is, to all intents and purposes, a Mk8 Golf R Estate that’s been on the rack for a bit. And this is a good thing, because the underneath of the Golf R is a very fine and well engineered thing. It’s the interior’s relentlessly frustrating entertainment system that draws our ire.
Older is better
The Arteon R isn’t perfect inside – you still get touchpads on the steering wheel which, as ever, look whizzy but can be fiddly to use, and the touch-sensitive climate control panel is a bit hit-and-miss too.
But at least it means you don’t have to ferret through the infotainment screen if you simply want to adjust the heater fan speed. And that screen still uses the old software, which is infinitely easier to use than the new, post-Mk8 Golf set-up – another bonus.
It’s like a Golf R, then, but better. It is also, however, more expensive. Even without ticking any of the options boxes, the Arteon R will set you back a cool £56,085. That’s about £2,500 more than you’ll pay for a BMW M340i xDrive Touring.
This is a problem, because the M340i is one of the finest fast estates on sale. It too has four-wheel drive, but it also comes with a sonorous six-cylinder engine which kicks out no less than 369bhp. It’ll hold its value better, too. And somewhat incredibly, it also manages to achieve better fuel economy. What’s more, it comes with a slicker, more upmarket interior that, by dint of the fact it comes with proper buttons, is also more usable.
Oh, and then there’s the upcoming Mercedes-AMG C43 Estate, whose price is yet to be revealed, but it looks set to cost the same as, or not much more than, the Arteon – and it’ll have 402bhp. Eek.
Space is the key
Case closed, right? Well, Volkswagen would argue that where the Arteon R fights back is in terms of its internal space. And indeed, it’s hard to disagree; from the outside, the Arteon’s low roof and shallow rear screen might make you think it’ll feel cramped within, but let’s not forget that this is a car based on the vast Passat, and it retains its more utilitarian stablemate’s considerable rear leg room, along with surprisingly decent head room, as well as a 590-litre boot.
If not on power, then, the Arteon R at least knocks its rivals into a cocked hat as far as practicality is concerned. It’s well equipped, too, with heated massage seats in the front, a heated steering wheel, adaptive suspension, a variety of parking cameras, ambient lighting, a panoramic roof and much more besides.
And while it doesn’t feel quite as upmarket as its premium rivals, the Arteon R is still reasonably smart – not overtly racy, but then that wouldn’t be appropriate in a car that’s pitched more as an executive express than a tarmac terrorist.
Business class
It’s into that role of executive express that it slips rather effortlessly, once you get it on a motorway. Set the suspension to Comfort and the R feels like a big, smooth cruiser with effortless power along with endless grip on long, curving slip roads. The only chink in its armour here are the large, 20in wheels of our test car, which pick up on expansion gaps and send back a little bit of tyre rumble into the cockpit.
Away from the motorway, however, Comfort mode feels a touch less well suited. It does a good job of smoothing urban potholes, although here the narrow-sidewalled tyres mean they’re never damped out entirely, while there’s a slightly queasy waft to the suspension over undulations.
Switch to Sport mode and the waft disappears, but the stiffer damping means the big wheels clunk and clatter through ruts; Race mode, meanwhile, is all but intolerable unless the surface is mirror-smooth. These traits would likely be reduced with the standard 19-inch rims, so in this regard, we’ll give the R the benefit of the doubt and advise you don’t specify the larger wheels.
Given how closely the two cars are related, you might expect the Arteon to feel like a big Golf R when you get a clear patch of sinuous road. But it has a different character; VW’s engineers seem to have made the effect of that fancy rear axle less forceful, which means the Arteon doesn’t feel quite as keen to pivot around, nudging its nose into the apex as you feed in the power.
Grip and go
In fact, the Arteon uses its prodigious front-end traction to drag you into a bend like a front-wheel-drive car with a differential. Only in a really tight bend, if you wind on lock and prod the accelerator hard, do you get a sense of the tail doing the driving – and even then it’s only for a split second, until traction can be returned to the nose again.
In effect, then, it actually feels closer to the old, Mk7 Golf R, which could throw power to the rear, but not to each wheel individually, which resulted in it feeling more like a puller than a pusher. And here’s that same utterly faithful front end, the same ability to find traction where there shouldn’t be any, the same all-weather accessibility that means, even in the wet, you can point the Arteon R out of a bend and squeeze on the accelerator long before you’ve rounded the apex, and the car will do the work for you, firing you onto the next straight with a ferocity you would never associate with a big estate.
It is blisteringly quick point-to-point, and even if it isn’t quite as savage in throttle response or auditory accompaniment as its smaller stablemate, it still gets the blood pumping.
The Telegraph verdict
This blend of blistering pace, dashing looks and immense space is an intoxicating one, and it means that for all its usability foibles you’ll probably come away from the Arteon R liking it very much indeed.
You will undoubtedly have more fun in an M340i; consequently, that’s probably still the car we’d pick (it looks like better value, too). However, if you need to shift labradors or flat-pack furniture with any regularity, the BMW’s smaller boot might not work for you, in which case the Arteon R is a compelling alternative.
It’s a brilliant all-rounder, hampered only by that steep price and some silly switchgear. Otherwise, though, there’s much here to love. This, then, is VW’s most convincing crack at the big, fast estate yet. And it’s one that deserves to do far better than its forebears.
The facts
On test: Volkswagen Arteon R Shooting Brake
Body style: five-door estate (also available as a five-door hatchback)
On sale: now
How much? £56,085 on the road (range from £40,775)
How fast? 155mph, 0-62mph in 4.9sec
How economical? 30.7mpg (WLTP Combined)
Engine & gearbox: 1,984cc four-cylinder petrol turbo engine, seven-speed dual-clutch automatic gearbox, four-wheel drive
Electric powertrain: N/A
Maximum power/torque: 316bhp/310lb ft
CO2 emissions: 209g/km
VED: £1,420 first year, £520 next five years, then £165
Warranty: 3 years / 60,000 miles (mileage unlimited in first two years)
Spare wheel as standard: No (not available)
The rivals
BMW M340i xDrive Touring
369bhp, 32.6mpg, £53,435 on the road
Probably the best quick estate on the market, the M340i is an absolute delight to drive quickly, yet it’s also brilliant when you’re going slowly. It rides comfortably and feels gorgeous to sit in. In fact, its only real downside is that its boot and rear seats are quite a bit less spacious than those of the Arteon. If you can live with that, this is the one to have.
Mercedes-AMG C43 Estate
402bhp, mpg TBC, £55,000 (est’d)
This next iteration of Merc’s one-rung-down muscle estate will also get a four-cylinder engine for the first time – albeit one that’s augmented by an electric supercharger and a 48-volt mild hybrid boost. It should be smarter to sit in than the Arteon, but again, don’t expect it to live up to the space on offer in the VW.
Peugeot 508 Peugeot Sport Engineered SW
355bhp, 139.8mpg, £56,465 on the road
It’s as long and low as the Arteon, but this 508 doesn’t quite pack in as much space, partly by dint of the fact it’s a plug-in hybrid. That means an unexpected bonus over its rivals here: a 24-mile electric range, which should reduce the cost of the commute (and the company car tax bills, for that matter). Despite its aggressive looks, the 508 PSE is actually quite smooth-riding – although the payoff is that isn’t quite as sharp to drive.
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