Volkswagen's decision to build a massive luxury saloon was about as rational as Volkswagen's decision to spend hundreds of millions developing the world's fastest production car. Clearly there's something in the water at the company making them do bonkers things, although there's a difference in our examples here, what with the Bugatti actually selling quite successfully.
The Phaeton is in many ways a triumph of VW's engineering - it is technologically very advanced and feels very refined inside, but then the problem is that it still wears a Volkswagen badge which it shares with an £10,000 supermini. You can imagine why someone might hesitate to spend £80,000 on an outrageously fast 6.0-litre W12 model when it's got 'people's car' written in German on the back of it.
Which is a shame, because the Phaeton is genuinely talented - you just can't tell it from the outside. Unfortunately the styling is conservative and slightly dull, making the car look merely like a Passat that has been stretched and enlarged. However special the inside, if you're going to be spending this much money you want the outside to let people know that you have.
The interior is extraordinarily quiet, and the intense attention to detail that Volkswagen focuses on all of its more premium models is evident here. Even at a motorway cruise the cabin is almost whisper quiet. And whilst the quality of the materials is not in doubt, everything is very plush here; the design of the cabin is quite old-fashioned and doesn't bear comparison to other models in the class, including its stablemate, the Audi A8.
The VW is very spacious, though, with bags of room for four people to recline in comfort. One slightly sour note is that despite the decent size of the boot, you cannot fold the rear seats down to give you more room. That said, perhaps this isn't the kind of car you would use to visit Ikea anyway.
The Phaeton is more limo-like than hot saloon, and the steering doesn't give you any reason for encouragement. It is very stable on the motorway, but around town and narrower roads you do notice the car's bulk. Running costs are horrendous (although the 3.0-litre diesel model is only mildly upsetting to run) and depreciation absolutely catastrophic though, so you shouldn't retain any hope of remaining wealthy once you've bought a Phaeton.