Volkswagen Passat Estate - long-term review

‘Road testing’ is a curious skill. It’s 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 – 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…

I, however, have a failing as a road tester, and it’s because I’m a bit big. Call it 6’ 5”, or thereabouts, as it’s been some decades since a doctor tutted and clambered onto a step to measure me. It doesn’t (at least not very often) impinge upon my ability to evaluate a car on the move, but it does mean I’m an utterly crap barometer when it comes to judging interior space and practicality.

What I think is cramped is another’s 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’s 5’ 8” – but maybe he’ll revert to imperial measurements now the NHS’s latest Health Survey for England is out and declared the average man is 175.8cm tall.

Our editor-in-chief, Jack Rix, is 5’ 8” too, but let’s say 175.9cm instead, meaning I can call him ‘above average’ for the sake of continued employment. Paul Horrell is also “1.75-ish, maybe a little more”, but extra sucking up never hurt anyone so let’s say “maybe a little less” and allow Jack to be taller.

Responding on text, Jethro used humour to deflect from any, ahem, shortcomings, declaring himself “6’ 1” if I was on Tinder. Probably 5’ 11” in real life”. But here at Top Gear we don’t deal in wishful thinking, that’s the reserve of low-volume British sports car manufacturers, so let’s settle on a more realistic 5’ 10. Which is the same as TopGear.com’s editor Vijay, and a (rightly) suspicious-sounding Joe Holding.

But, don’t feel too sorry for my Short King colleagues, because for every time they can’t 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’t fit under the dashboard.

And, for them, it means every car is cavernous and expansive, whereas for me it’s 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’t 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’d crush my kids’ legs the first time I slid the driver’s seat back.

Not so in the Passat though, because – let the trumpet fanfare begin – I can sit comfortably behind my own driving position! Look, there’s pictorial proof. I love it! It’s amazing! What space! This must be how my dinky little colleagues feel all the time…