{"id":1829241,"date":"2026-03-16T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-15T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1829241"},"modified":"2026-03-16T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-03-15T21:00:00","slug":"volkswagen-passat-estate-long-term-review-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1829241","title":{"rendered":"Volkswagen Passat Estate – long-term review"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u2018Road testing\u2019 is a curious skill. It\u2019s the heartland of what we do at Top Gear, because we like cars, you do too, and we want to tell you about the most interesting ones \u2013 hopefully in an amusing way. Our assessments are static and dynamic too, because fitness-for-purpose means how the seats fold in the third row of an SUV is an important as the steering feel in a mid-engine supercar. Well, almost\u2026<\/p>\n

I, however, have a failing as a road tester, and it\u2019s because I\u2019m a bit big. Call it 6\u2019 5\u201d, or thereabouts, as it\u2019s been some decades since a doctor tutted and clambered onto a step to measure me. It doesn\u2019t (at least not very often) impinge upon my ability to evaluate a car on the move, but it does mean I\u2019m an utterly crap barometer when it comes to judging interior space and practicality.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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What I think is cramped is another\u2019s lap of luxury. You see, I took an office poll, and Ollie Marriage is 175cm. Which was his deliberately abstruse way of delivering the news that he\u2019s 5\u2019 8\u201d \u2013 but maybe he\u2019ll revert to imperial measurements now the NHS\u2019s latest Health Survey for England is out and declared the average man is 175.8cm tall.<\/p>\n

Our editor-in-chief, Jack Rix, is 5\u2019 8\u201d too, but let\u2019s say 175.9cm instead, meaning I can call him \u2018above average\u2019 for the sake of continued employment. Paul Horrell is also \u201c1.75-ish, maybe a little more\u201d, but extra sucking up never hurt anyone so let\u2019s say \u201cmaybe a little less\u201d and allow Jack to be taller.<\/p>\n

Responding on text, Jethro used humour to deflect from any, ahem, shortcomings, declaring himself \u201c6\u2019 1\u201d if I was on Tinder. Probably 5\u2019 11\u201d in real life\u201d. But here at Top Gear we don\u2019t deal in wishful thinking, that\u2019s the reserve of low-volume British sports car manufacturers, so let\u2019s settle on a more realistic 5\u2019 10. Which is the same as TopGear.com\u2019s editor Vijay, and a (rightly) suspicious-sounding Joe Holding.<\/p>\n

But, don\u2019t feel too sorry for my Short King colleagues, because for every time they can\u2019t see over my shoulder in a lift, I have to duck going through a doorway, squeeze into an economy seat on a flight, order my trousers from The Internet, or forgo a drive up a Spanish mountain in an Aston Martin Valkyrie because my knees won\u2019t fit under the dashboard.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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And, for them, it means every car is cavernous and expansive, whereas for me it\u2019s a squash and a squeeze, a compromise between my leg space and that of my lanky children. Every mid-sized SUV, that go-to family hauler, isn\u2019t quite big enough. And while every other road tester dreams of owning a 911, thinking they can convince their better half that the +2 back seats make it a practical, I know I\u2019d crush my kids\u2019 legs the first time I slid the driver\u2019s seat back.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Not so in the Passat though, because \u2013 let the trumpet fanfare begin \u2013 I can sit comfortably behind my own driving position! Look, there\u2019s pictorial proof. I love it! It\u2019s amazing! What space! This must be how my dinky little colleagues feel all the time\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018Road testing\u2019 is a curious skill. It\u2019s the heartland of what we do at Top Gear, because we like cars, you do too, and we want to tell you about the most interesting ones \u2013 hopefully in an amusing way. Our assessments are static and dynamic too, because fitness-for-purpose means how the seats fold in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,237],"class_list":["post-1829241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-topgear-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1829241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1829241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1829241\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1829241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1829241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1829241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}