The People's Bugatti

It is Saturday morning in Fort Lauderdale and suddenly you find yourself stuck in a massive traffic jam. All the traffic comes to a stop. Police sirens are blaring everywhere. What is going on? Is it the end of the world? Has a meteorite just struck? Are we under attack? Nahhh. Something much better. It is the annual Toy Rally.

The Toy Rally is an annual event where exotic cars parade down the main strip in Fort Lauderdale. Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Porsches, Maseratis, Bentleys, Rolls Royces and yes, even Bugattis. Thousands of spectators line the streets to watch the parade of exotic cars roll by. It is quite a spectacle.

And then, in the middle of all this exotic machinery, a silver Volkswagen Passat wagon rolls by. The crowd goes silent. Then a few people start to laugh. Then more people laugh. Then everyone is laughing. What is a Volkswagen doing in the middle of all these exotic cars?

Well, it turns out that this is no ordinary Volkswagen. This is a Volkswagen Passat W8. And the W8 in the name stands for W8 cylinder engine. And that W8 engine has a very interesting history.

So you want one? Well, good luck finding one. Volkswagen only made the Passat W8 for two model years, 2002 and 2003. And they only made about 4,000 of them for the North American market. So they are quite rare.

The Passat W8 was available in two body styles, sedan and wagon. Both were available with either a 6-speed manual or a 6-speed automatic transmission. And both were available with either front-wheel drive or all-wheel drive (4Motion).

The W8 engine produced 270 horsepower and 273 lb-ft of torque. It could accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in about 6.1 seconds and had a top speed of 155 mph (electronically limited). Not bad for a family wagon.

The base price for the Passat W8 sedan was about $40,000 and the wagon was about $42,000. That was a lot of money for a Volkswagen in 2002. But it was a bargain compared to the competition. A BMW 5-series or Mercedes E-class with similar performance would cost considerably more.

The story of the W8 engine begins with Ferdinand Piëch, the legendary automotive engineer and executive who served as CEO of Volkswagen Group from 1993 to 2002. Piëch was obsessed with engineering excellence and he wanted to create the ultimate engine.

In the early 1990s, Piëch acquired Bugatti and set about creating the Bugatti Veyron, which would eventually become the world's fastest production car. The Veyron used a W16 engine — essentially two W8 engines joined together.

The W8 engine was a marvel of engineering. It had a very compact design, with four banks of two cylinders each, arranged in a W configuration. This allowed it to be shorter than a conventional V8 engine, making it easier to fit in a front-wheel drive car like the Passat.

The W8 engine was also used in the Volkswagen Phaeton, a large luxury sedan that was Piëch's personal project. The Phaeton was a technological tour de force, but it was also a commercial failure, much like the Passat W8.

* FOOTNOTE: leftlanenews.com/bugatti/veyron-16-4/

The Passat W8 was a victim of bad timing. It was introduced just as the economy was going into recession following the September 11 attacks. Consumers were not in the mood to spend $40,000 on a Volkswagen, no matter how good it was.

Volkswagen also did a poor job of marketing the W8. They failed to communicate what made it special. Most consumers had no idea that the W8 had a connection to Bugatti. They just saw a Volkswagen with a high price tag.

Dealers were also not enthusiastic about the W8. It was expensive to maintain and repair, and it was difficult to explain to customers why they should pay so much for a Volkswagen. Many dealers refused to stock it.

After just two model years, Volkswagen quietly discontinued the Passat W8. It was never replaced. The W8 engine was also discontinued, although the W12 engine continued to be used in the Phaeton and the Bentley Continental.

The VW W8 is both an engineering success and a commercial failure. Yeah, it's all about timing.

The Volkswagen Passat W-8 may be the most misunderstood automobile ever manufactured. Perhaps this is the worst marketing blunder in automotive history.