Volkswagen Passat Estate BlueMotion: car review | Martin Love

Volkswagen's virtually teetotal Passat BlueMotion makes a virtue of austerity. Just don't expect a party on the road

Price: 24,695
Top speed: 128mph
0-62mph: 10.8 seconds
CO2: 95g/km
MPG: 76.3

The vast Volkswagen group can be viewed as a pyramid of performance, and developments at the pinnacle trickle down through the layers. Bugatti sits at the top, above Lamborghini and Bentley, then there's Porsche, Audi, Volkswagen, Skoda and finally Seat. I've never quite understood the top-down analogy, as to my mind it means the good stuff inevitably pools at the bottom. Seat is the cheapest ride in the stable yet it benefits from everything above it. This year one of my favourite cars has been Skoda's Superb. Above that sits VW's new Passat, in many ways the same car with a different face. But the Skoda looks better, drives better and costs less. Maybe someone from VW HQ will read this and go: "Oh shite, Wolfgang, we've made a mistake""