During the Ferdinand Piech era, the Volkswagen lineup welcomed the poor-selling Phaeton. Twinned with the Audi A8 and Bentley Continental Flying Spur on the Volkswagen Group's D1 platform, the luxury sedan was discontinued in 2006 for the US and in 2016 for other markets.
Turns out charging loads of money for a Volkswagen-badged luxury sedan isn't exactly smart. In any case, Volkswagen continues to make a Phaeton-like model in China for the Chinese market exclusively. Enter the Phideon, which is based on the MLB platform of the Audi A4 through A8.
Manufactured by VW's joint venture with SAIC in Shanghai, the Phideon received a well-deserved facelift in November 2020 at the Guangzhou Auto Show. This, in turn, means that a second generation is right around the corner. Instead of the People's Republic of China, our spy photographers caught a lightly camouflaged prototype testing in Sweden.
As far as the automotive industry is concerned, Sweden is the center of all things winter testing. Volkswagen may have very well taken second-gen Phideon prototypes to Mongolia, but alas, the German colossus doesn't have such facilities in the world's most sparsely populated sovereign state.
Based on the hard points of the black-painted car, we're dealing with the very same platform as the outgoing first generation. The slightly longer wheelbase and the Audi-esque taillights also stand out, as does the chrome trim running from the front fenders to the driver and front-passenger doors.
Photo: Baldauf
The chrome trim on the rear quarter windows further differentiates the next-gen Phideon from the current model, and even the shark fin-style antenna is a wee bit different from that of the 2024 model. At over 5 meters long, the Phideon is pretty similar in length to the rear-biased 5 Series and E-Class.
Under the hood, we don't expect anything other than a four-cylinder turbo. Dubbed Hui Ang in China, which translates to Noble Brightness, the Phideon is currently priced at 343,000 yuan for the 380 TSI. That's 47,720 dollars at current exchange rates. The Passat sedan, by comparison, is 208,300 yuan or just around 28,980 dollars for model year 2024.
Exclusively front-wheel drive, the Phideon requires 8.1 seconds to reach 100 kilometers per hour (62 miles per hour), onto a maximum speed of 240 kilometers per hour (149 kilometers per hour). Not bad for something that weighs over 1.8 tons. The SAIC-VW joint venture offered 4MOTION for the Phideon until 2021, the year the engine range was reduced to only the 380 TSI.
Based on how close to production this prototype is, and with Auto Guangzhou 2024 scheduled for mid-May, chances are that Volkswagen will start customer deliveries in the fall. Considering that fewer than 3,500 units of the Phideon were sold in the People's Republic of China last year, the newcomer isn't likely to sell in large quantities either.
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
Would you like AUTOEVOLUTION to send you notifications?
Google News