Missed Your Chance To Own VW’s PHAETAL MISTAKE The First Time? Now’s Your Chance To Make Up For It.

Wow...memory lane.

Funny true Phaeton story - I worked at Sotheby's art auction house in the early 2000's (management exec) and at the time we had our share of scandals - price fixing scandal (CEO Dede Brooks did ankle bracelet home confinement time and our board chair, Alfred Taubman (of Taubman Shopping Centers fame) actually did a year of jail time (he was thrown under the bus by Dede). After Dede went to jail, we had the 'successor CEO' - this guy Bill who started in the Rug Department and then ran marketing (worldwide EVP or some big shot title like that).

As a perk, the CEO got a car and driver (big deal in early 2000's). He started with a chauffeur driven 2000 MB S500. Then there was an art downturn and he had to lay off about 25% of the workforce (cyclical business so happened every 5 to 10 years unfortunately - boom bust kind of situation).

After he fired a few hundred people, the remaining employees complained about the "fat-cat" CEO who had his midnight blue S500 idling at the curb all day while he was at work. While their pay was cut and their peers laid off.

He was kind of a thin skinned guy, so instead of taking one for the team and driving himself to work or taking the train down from his Connecticut manse, what does he do? He goes out and gets a W12 VW Phaeton (black/tan leather) and pretends its a cheap car. He really thought he fooled some people - pathetic.

A bunch of employees got even more disgusted at him because (at an auction house, we are paid to know exactly what things cost) we knew that not only was he driving a more expensive car than his prior S500 (despite him pretending otherwise) but that the Phaeton was just such a loser luxo barge as 001 states above, people thought was foolish for buying it too (company likely bought it actually I imagine). The guy who had little respect to start with squandered even more of it away.

Funny thing about the Phaeton was that it was a key element in the business case for VW to build the new Bentley Continental and Flying Spur (same tank-like car underneath).

Bentley would probably never been launched if the VW accounting department couldn't convince the board how much $$$$ would be saved by amortizing the tooling across multiple platforms (Phaeton, Touareg, Cayenne, Continental, Flying Spur). At least the whole debacle gave us the Cayenne which is a really fine SUV.

Great story

Ahhhh....the phaeton, one of the best cars in the world at the time that absolutely no one knew about. Impressive tech/innovations wrapped in the most dull, underwhelming designs VW ever created.

Interestingly enough, around that time Benz released the LEAST loved S Class in the brand’s history, taking a dramatic dip in build quality/reliability, but because it was an S Class and still offered up tech/Benz design ques, it went on to be one of the best selling luxury barge in the world

The Phaeton, an overachiever trapped in an underachiever’s body

the Phaeton was a bad vehicle for the VW brand. but it was definitely good for the Audi A8, Bentley Continental. Provided the high-end option for Audi & a low-end option for Bentley. Although Bentley should've followed BMW Rolls -Royce in making a more comparable model to the Ghost sedan. A Bentley the size of an A6 maybe.

The PHaeton failed. Period. It wasn't appealing to luxury car buyers. Marketing and salespeople have only so much impact on an appealing/unappealing car. Marketing gets the clients in the door, salespeople basically gives them the tour, but at the end of the day the car makes the sale, most specifically in the higher end. When I was negotiating my last car, the dealership outright pissed me off. What did I do? I went to another dealer for the same car. I didn't go get a Honda.

This is a dumb comment: "... unfortunately VW changed direction in the USA to compete with Toyota and Honda ..."

THAT is VW's place in the automotive world: mainstream not premium.

@faqmd Those are some good drugs

Agree. VW's direction NEVER should have been to try to compete with Benz and BMW, and it's own sister, Audi.

VW has horrible brand discipline and overlap.

There NEVER should have been an Audi R8 because that competes with Porsche. The R8 should have been a Porsche.

The TT at most should be a rebodied GTI with a 10% premium.

The Arteon should not exist because it overlaps the Audi A4.

VWAG simply does not need VW, Skoda, and SEAT, not to mention the creation of a Cupra brand to overlap with Audi.

How does the car not have enough power? Jeremy Clarkson was able to take it up to 200 mph. It wasn't designed to have a sexy 0-60 time as it is a land yacht for wafting

He sent it off a cliff.

VW loves its stupidly wrong designs.

The Phaeton should have been an Avalon.

But let's not forget the truly terrible Passat W8.

The Touareg was a dumb vehicle that was big and heavy, yet cramped inside somehow, and named after terrorists.

The Arteon is another moronic thought. It should have been an Avalon rather than an A7 wannabe.

Although I love the Corrado it was overpriced and while I like the VR6 version, you'd have been better off with a Foxstang for performance for the dollar. Sure, the Foxstang had an unruly live axle, but the VR6 was nose heavy and needed chassis braces to combat body flex to get any handling out of it.

Phaeton's failure was both media & social driven. Snobbery by industry journalists hurt an otherwise solid brand flagship & echos of the same type of biased reporting & assumptions continue to sway how the typical car consumer see high-end VW's today. if VW didnt have the set of halo brands to cloud consumer opinions, it wouldn't be half the size it is today.

Yeah, being $45K overpriced had NOTHING to do with it.

One of VW massive failures!