Volkswagen Passat 2.0 TSI R-Line Edition Estate 2019 UK first drive

This is a top-of-the-line Volkswagen Passat with a sporty yet also quite stealthy styling kit, and pretty much all of the available technological trimmings lavished as standard.  

The R-Line Edition limited-series Passat comes in Estate form only, and only in ‘moonstone grey’ with black 19in alloy wheels and matching gloss black body trim. It was an anniversary present of a sort given by VW to Passat devotees worldwide, and was announced at the 2019 Geneva motor show at the same time that the facelifted eighth-generation car was given its global debut. Its appearance also roughly coincided with VW’s making of the 30-millionth new car to wear a Passat name badge.

The car is available with a choice of 237bhp 2.0-litre turbodiesel or 268bhp 2.0-litre turbo petrol engines, both getting 4Motion four-wheel drive as standard and the latter being marginally the less expensive; but neither being anything close to cheap. For the near-£44k of our petrol-engined test car, after all, you could get a perfectly serviceable Audi A6 with almost the same engine.

But then VW’s UK distributor only has 150 Passat R-Line Editions to sell in total, and shouldn’t struggle to find that many buyers who like understated, four-wheel drive performance wagons in general, and perhaps Passats in particular.

The Passat R-Line Edition’s purposefully whispering appearance might be the best chance it’s got of justifying that pricetag. Designed by the stylists at VW’s ‘R’motorsport and performance engineering division, the car’s bodykit consists of roof rails, door mirror caps, side window frames, a grille surround and a diffuser insert in high-gloss black, as well as one of the most subtle black roof spoilers you’ll ever see. And while the look is very contrast-heavy, all the black body trim complimented the grey paintwork and black wheels very nicely indeed to these eyes.

There is less that’s special about the car’s interior that you couldn’t also get on a regular Passat R-Line, although that doesn’t mean it’s not a very comfortable, pleasant and reassuringly classy driving environment. The car’s driving position is a touch higher than you might like but its part-leather R-Line sports seats juggle support with cushioning well.

Equipment level is also every bit as kitchen-sink as you’d expect for the money; you get VW’s top-end, entirely buttonless 9.2in Discover Navigation Pro infotainment system and fully adaptable digital instruments thrown in, as well as adaptive ‘LED Matrix’ headlights, adaptive dampers and Area View parking cameras. VW’s very latest Travel Assist semi-autonomous driving system also comes at no extra cost; it works more like Tesla’s autopilot system than most other lane-keep assist systems when it comes to motorway driving, with a ‘capacitive’ steering wheel that only requires the lightest of hands on the wheel to remain active. Alternatively and perhaps slightly worryingly, as someone at independent safety testing centre Thatcham assured me a few months ago, an uncooked sausage cable-tied to the rim works just as well.