2 Years and 250,000 Volkswagen Passats Later

Volkswagen Passat

• It hasn’t been without incident or union organizing drive, but the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, TN has built its 250,000 Passat in just a little over two years.

Why is the Volkswagen Passat So Popular?

• Safe!• The Passat has always been one of the most

safest mid-size sedans and continues to be. After it’s redesign in 2012, the Passat received IIHS top safety pick of the year right off the bat, and 2013 is still no different and is equipped with advanced safety features that were designed to keep your most precious cargo safe in case of a collision.

#1 Best-Seller Mid-Size Sedan

• Clean and beautiful design

• 2012 Motor trend car of the year

World Class Efficiency• It should surprise no one that over the course of 11 mixed-driving

loops, our diesel Passat recorded the highest fuel economy stats of this year's finalists at 34.3 mpg. Perhaps more interesting was the base 2.5-liter's fifth-best 26.5 mpg -- that's exactly halfway between the EPA city and highway ratings of 22/31 mpg.

• That's higher within its EPA-predicted economy range than any other finalist managed, and the second highest was the TDI/DSG at 43 percent of its 30/40-mpg points spread (we didn't run the VR6 on our fuel-economy loops). This bodes exceptionally well for real-world achievability of the Passat's window-sticker numbers. Not penurious enough with the petrol? Opt for the base five-speed manual in the SE to eke out one more highway mpg, or the six-speed manual TDI to earn an even better 31/43 mpg.

Value

• The Volkswagen Passat has a base price of $20,765.

• Ownership costs are further supported by VW’s Carefree Maintenance Program which picks us the tab for all scheduled stops during 3-year/36,000 mile bumper-to-bumper warranty.