Flagship Arteon is the sexy VW hatchback
Let’s hear it for art. Some of the country’s most recognizable art is in its downtowns: The elegant “Spirit of Detroit” in Motown. Calder’s “Flamingo” in Chicago. The sculpture that spells “Love” in New York. They break up monotonous landscapes of right angles.
The VW Arteon is like that in the boxy world of SUVs. This stunning sedan sculpture is the cure for the common five-door.
From its finely drawn face to its meticulously stamped clamshell hood (go on, feel the surfacing with your fingers) to its coupe-like roof, the Arteon lives up to its name. It’s one of the most beautiful pieces of art in automotive today.
Even amidst the New York Auto Show’s exotic supermodels, the Arteon and Mazda 3 hatchback stopped me in my tracks. Both cars make a statement in classes that have seen sales eroded by ute-mania. Both offer flowing, feline lines to counter the masculine SUV bulk. Both accomplish this while embracing the SUV’s most utilitarian feature — the hatchback.
And both do not fully follow through on their dramatic aspirations. Where the Mazda 3 stops short of optioning a high-horsepower hot hatch, so does Arteon shy from offering a second, more-powerful engine to complement its athletic bod. No doubt their low production volumes test the business case for a second engine.
But as halo designs for the respective brands, they deserve halo performance.
After I picked up my jaw from the ground upon seeing the Arteon again in Solvang, California (“The Danish Capital of the USA”), I slid inside. Defying its coupe-like roofline, its interior is palatial. Credit a wheelbase stretched five inches over its predecessor, the attractive VW CC. That translates into leg room that is six inches longer than a Nissan Maxima and four inches more than a Kia Stinger and Buick Regal — all competitors in the sporty sedan segment.
My 6-foot-5 frame easily sat behind myself in the rear seat. So pick up your friends for a day out — but be sure to tell them to hang on.
Because even though Arteon has the biggest back seat in the VW family (beating even the giant Atlas SUV), it has the personality of hot-hatch siblings Golf GTI and Golf R — my favorite compact toys. Credit a shared platform — VW’s genius, scalable MQB architecture.
Indeed, Arteon is a natural walk for V-dub fans looking to supersize their hatchback Golf into a hatchback sedan. It has the same driving controls, same infotainment system, same driving dynamics.
If you haven’t tested a sportback — the Arteon, Kia Stinger, Buick Regal and Audi A5 — do yourself a favor. Their versatility is the bestkept secret in autodom.
Los Pedros National Forest in southern California is Hell, Michigan on steroids. Its writhing, rural roads stretch for miles. Sporting the same torque-vectoring all-wheel drive system as the Golf R, the Arteon eagerly attacked Los Pedros. Dial the mode selector to Sport and the steering and sophisticated adaptive-damping suspension tighten.
The big car’s dimensions seemed to contract as it rotated effortlessly through corners. Hmmm, you might want to put barf bags in the rear seats for your passengers.
Pushing the Arteon’s limits, I pined for more from its 268-horse turbo-4. VW offers the 220-horsepower GLI over the standard Jetta. And the 228-horse GTI and 292-horse R as Golf upgrades. But halo Arteon gets ... nichts?
Pity. After all, VW group has gems in its toolbox like the 394-horsepower turbo-5 holer (found in the Audi TT RS) or the 349-pony turbo-4 in the Audi S4. Heck, the Golf R’s growly 288-horse turbo-4 would do.
Perhaps Volkswagen corporate wants the Arteon to respect the family hierarchy. Give the gorgeous Arteon a sultry mill and I’d never covet an Audi A7 again. At much less than a $70,000, 335-horse Audi A7, the Arteon would be irresistible
Know your place, Arteon! But that place has already been taken by the aforementioned turbo-4 powered Kia Stinger hatchback, which goes head-to-head against the Arteon until $40,000 at which point it sprouts a 365-horse, twin-turbo V-6 and lays rubber up the road in pursuit of luxe Germans.
Arteon? It is content to stay in its lane and trade blows with the Maxima, Buick Regal and Acura TLX. With their giant, elephant-packing hatchbacks, the Arteon and Regal are my picks here. The Buick steals the value play by adding an all-wheel drive 310horse V-6 for just $40,000 — less than the comparable allwheel drive Arteon SEL trim.
The va-voom VW makes its pitch with upscale touches like athletic handling, panoramic sunroof, threezone climate control and Kurkuma Yellow Metallic paint (yum).