GRR Garage: VW Passat Alltrack - meet the ancestors

30th November 2017

Ethan Jupp

We’ve had our Passat for quite a while now and critically speaking, this week at least, we’re at a loss on what to comment. It’s coping with the cold as well as any new car should and we’re still thoroughly enjoying its many accoutrements – business as usual, then.

So we thought we’d take a look back at Passat as a name as well as where our Estate Alltrack can trace its direct roots. Although it’s been with us longer than household names like Golf and Polo, Passat doesn’t enjoy the same notoriety. It’s actually one of the oldest (the oldest is Beetle technically) names still offered in the VW range, hailing back to 1973. It was also the first true front-wheel-drive VW. Effectively, the Passat is the absolute taproot of the modern Volkswagen.

It’s not always been a shrinking violet either, with the W8 version employing a slightly cylindrically challenged relation to the W12 and W16 engines found in our beloved modern Bentleys and Bugattis. The R36 was a sort of halo “hot” model that utilised a lovely rowdy 3.6-litre V6. We certainly wouldn’t mind an Alltrack R…

Some useless Passat facts courtesy of our resident Anorak: the original was known as Dasher in the states until 1981 and Quantum in Brazil and those are only the most famous pseudonyms Passat has operated under.

Our Alltrack can trace its all-wheel-drive roots all the way back to 1984’s B2 Passat Syncro, of which a Variant (estate) version was offered. Civilian spec' load-lugging Passats have been around almost since the word dot, with the first being launched in 1974.

So, to any cynics that look at our Passat Alltrack and scoff, spouting stuff like “they’ll do anything to fill a niche”, know that VW pretty much invented the jacked-up wagon and that it predated any era of so-called niche-filling.

If you want a wagon on stilts the one with the most heritage isn’t called “Allroad”, “All-Terrain” “Cross Country” or even “Outback”. It’s the humble Alltrack. Maybe it’s time for the Syncro nameplate to make a comeback?

MPG this week: 41.3