This is what the VW Phaeton should have become – until Dieselgate KILLED it

Volkswagen reveals the Phaeton D2, the car that was supposed to replace the original Phaeton before Dieselgate ended its life.

What do you buy if you want a ‘Premium’ car from VAG? You probably buy an Audi. But, more than twenty years ago, the then VW Chairman Ferdinand Piech had other ideas.

Piech’s idea was to deliver a truly premium car, up there with cars like the Mercedes S-Class, and that saw the VW Phaeton appear in 2002, a car unlike anything VW had delivered before; a true premium offering from the makers of the ‘People’s Car’.

In terms of design, the Phaeton was nothing exceptional. In fact, it looked almost bland, and rather like an upsized version of the Passat to many.

But VW built the Phaeton to incredibly demanding specs and it was, no doubt, a very special car, unfortunately with a very un-premium badge.

But beyond the very conservative looks lay drivetrains which now seem completely bonkers, with a 6.0-litre W12 petrol engine and  5.0-litre V10 Diesel (there was also a 3.2-litre V6 for those who didn’t have brave pills to hand).

There’s no doubt the Phaeton was a tour de Force from VW, but apart from casting a bit of a premium glow on the range it can’t have been a sound commercial project.

Despite that, VW was planning a new Phaeton and, in 2016, had signed off on the Phaeton D2 (pictured here) which is now revealed to celebrate 20 years since the Phaeton first arrived.

Once again, the Phaeton in its D2 guise wasn’t a standout design, remaining conservative in looks, but it did have features we’ve seen since in other VW cars, like the curved display.

But the plans to deliver a new Phaeton were dealt a death blow after the Dieselgate scandal emerged and VW decided to bin it and concentrate on producing fluffy green EVs instead.