A gracefully mature car

BUT COMPUTER SHOWED A CONSUMPTION OF 3.7 LITRES PER 100KM

There are a couple of great lines in the often-quoted poem Desiderata which are particularly apt when it comes to life’s circle and the fact that all of us get older and, as we do so, we change. It is inevitable.

One line is the sage advice to “Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.”

I am finding that applies more and more to me in an automotive sense, because fast cars don’t hold the allure they once did. I no longer feel the urge, when sitting in a turbocharged tar burner, to “dice” the oke next to me at the robots (well … almost never).

There are a number of reasons for that. For a start, cars at the top end of the performance scale have become ridiculously fast and, in my opinion, too quick for the reflexes of mere mortals to control. You only have to look at all the incidents of supercars getting smashed to realise that is true.

Secondly, there are very few places where you can even vaguely stretch the legs of your powerful steed these days, because the cops are everywhere (with the possible exception of Joburg, as we reported this week).

Finally, though, I find there is pleasure in what, years ago, we would have regarded as the small, or even irrelevant, things.

These days, I find it much more satisfying to switch off a car and look at the fuel consumption indicator showing an average of less than 6 litres per 100km than to hit 160km/h plus.

Does that make me an old fart? I don’t think so. I think I am rather the sort of person who has been there, done that, got the T-shirt and now realises how much you miss by not slowing down. Plus there is the injunction in the opening line of Desiderata: “Go placidly amid the noise and haste …”

This is why I really like cars like the Volkswagen Passat TDi. Firstly, let us get this out of the way, and curse me if you like, Greenies – I am not that fussed about the diesel emissions “scandal” in the US. That technology is not used here. And diesel is still a very economical fuel, with, ironically, less long-term detrimental effects on the environment than some hybrid “green” cars, for example.

Next, the Passat is a classic sedan, with a “three-box” (bonnet, passenger compartment, boot) design which will age well. I know because I owned a VW Jetta for 26 years and it aged very well indeed because the design was simple (and VW’s paint – even from the ’80s – was amazing).

With its 130kW 2.0 litre diesel engine, this Passat is not the roadburner that the 162kW turbopetrol-engined version is.

That is not to say it does not have get up and go – and you particularly appreciate its 350 Nm of torque when putting foot to pass slower traffic), it’s just that it is more relaxed in the way it does things, going placidly amid the noise and haste, you might say.

The Passat really comes into its own on long, highway journeys. I went to see a colleague in his home village of Pankop, north of Pretoria (he was the founder of the Young Men’s Movement and I attended an amazing uplifting morning there, but that is another story).

Travelling at the posted speed limits (and sometimes below 120km/h because of traffic in the Pretoria area), I knew I was doing

The Passat really comes into its own on long, highway journeys.

well, consumption-wise.

But I was not prepared for the figure which blinked back at me from the trip computer: for the 140km-odd journey, the Passat averaged 3.7 litres per 100km.

That’s the best of any car I’ve yet tested, other than a pure electric one.

Going back, and travelling slightly faster, the average consumption for the trip did go up – but was still hovering at 4.7l/100km when I got home.

On the move the Passat is quiet, with the diesel motor a faintly audible thrum only. Inside, the cabin is luxurious yet supremely functional, as only German interiors can be.

Our Executive version costs R522 000 or so, the same as the 162kW petrol car. It’s got most of the goodies you want as standard, although you will have to pay extra for things like a sunroof (don’t bother) or the “visual cockpit” (definitely worth spending the extra).

Buying a Passat, if you can afford it, is taking kindly the counsel of years. It says you have arrived, but that your priorities are different. But it doesn’t mean that you have to surrender all those things of youth.

Our Executive version costs R522 000 or so, the same as the 162kW petrol car.