Volkswagen in the UK is set to announce that they will, after all, be offering the 5 seat option to UK buyers of the VW Passat CC.Sometimes it’s the oddest of stories that get big reactions.We ran a story last month about Volkswagen deciding to offer a 5-seat option on the Passat CC. We were so convinced it was a non-story we took the Mickey. But we were wrong. It would seem the 5 seat option on the Passat CC is a very big deal – certainly for some customers.
We’ve actually has a steady stream of emails since we published the story bemoaning VW UK’s refusal to offer the option, plus we had a couple of comments this last week on the original article. So we thought we ought to dig a bit, as the option is obviously important to a surprisingly large number of buyers.
We sent VW UK an email asking them to explain what’s going on. We didn’t get a reply straight away so we decided to put someone on researching buying a RHD Passat CC in Germany with the 5 seat option. Now whether our emails out to VW in Germany got back to VW UK – or our email to VW UK got to the top of the pile – we don’t know. But a response we got.
The official line on the 5 seat option is that the “‘…5-seat option has been under review by Volkswagen in the UK”. In other words our article made a lot of people go to their dealers asking for the 5 seats on the Passat CC – as one commenter said on the original article – so VW dealers have been asking VW UK why they can’t offer it. When pushed VW concede that they will make “…an announcement before long on the possible inclusion of a 5-seat option on the Passat CC”.
Off the record, expect an announcement within the week that the 5 seat option will be available for the Passat CC in the UK.