Equipment
4.0/270hp W8, 6-speed manual, BBS Madras wheels, sport suspension, sunroof, heated seats, EuroCustoms Tuning engine management software, cat-back exhaust, Sony touchscreen head unit with rearview camera.
Condition
#3 Good
Runs and drives well. Flaws not noticeable to passersby. Most common condition.
<p>The Blue Spirit Pearl over Flannel Gray leather wagon has 17-inch BBS “Madras” wheels, sport suspension, sunroof, heated power front seats and roof rails, while mild mods include EuroCustoms Tuning engine management software and a cat-back exhaust with four tips to clue you in that this isn’t an English professor’s Passat. Its New Jersey license plate reads “6SPDW8”. Nice.</p> <p>Now for the not-so-good stuff. It has nearly 150,000 miles, and all the usual chips, dings, wear and tear of a 150k-mile car. According to the seller, the engine was replaced in 2009 after a mechanic dropped a bolt down into the engine block before somebody else started the car. That’s one expensive oopsie.</p>
Market commentary
<p>A damn cool car, even if it takes a special kind of person to want to actually own it.</p> <p>The ill-fated Phaeton executive sedan is probably the most famous example of VW's early 2000s over-engineering, but before that was this truly wild version of the B5.5 Passat. The star of the show was the W8 engine, and the fact that this thing made it into a family car like the Passat is crazy enough. Sort of like Toyota slicing two cylinders off the Lexus LFA’s V10 and dropping it into a Camry. The W8 was something of a test run for VW’s later W12s used in Bentleys and Audis and the W16s used in Bugattis. Essentially two narrow-angle 15-degree VR4s arranged in a 72-degree V-shape on a common crank, it offered V8 power in a more compact package. Calling it half a Veyron engine isn’t a huge stretch of the truth, but in the Passat the 3999-cc W8 was rated at just 270 horsepower and 273 lb-ft of torque. It did at least garner praise for smoothness and delivering solid oomph on the highway. It’s the only engine with a W8 configuration to ever make it to production, and given the way the car industry is moving, it probably always will be.</p> <p>In the end, only 11,000 W8 Passats sold worldwide, and just a tiny fraction of those buyers ordered theirs with a long roof and third pedal. Some sources say fewer than 100 manual W8 wagons came to the U.S., and it’s probably a safe bet to say significantly fewer are still on the road.</p> <p>The seller has enjoyed the car for 10,000 miles, but he bought it a year ago for $13,400, and that doesn’t include the maintenance he’s done. Another example of how easy it is to lose money in this hobby.</p>