Advertisers make all kinds of claims on behalf of cars. They'll give you more freedom, make people want to have it off with you. But one thing they never suggest is that their car will make you feel more mature or grown up. I mention this because grown up is how the Passat Alltrack made me feel, and it was not an unpleasant sensation. I've waited my entire adult life to feel grown up. Mortgages, marriage, fatherhood: none of them stopped me essentially feeling like the same clueless div I was at 17. Then it happened, sitting in a kind of rurally, pimped-out version of Volkswagen's redoubtable family car. I felt quietly self-assured. In charge. Mature.
Perhaps it was because, beneath the rugged styling, the Alltrack is an estate car and in my youth, estates seemed to be cars driven exclusively by grownups: this was an era before fashions shifted towards MPVs and SUVs. The latter's influence is reflected in the way the Alltrack is designed for a purpose you suspect it'll never get used for. It has an off-road setting, activated by a button I never pressed and wondered if anyone else ever will. The closest I came to off-road activity was sending it too fast over some speed bumps – you'll note I was still driving like a clueless 17-year-old div – which inadvertently took advantage of the Alltrack's heightened body.
Or perhaps it was because there's something quietly assured about the Alltrack itself. Its price puts it in competition with Audi's A4 Allroad, the Range Rover Evoque and – if you're prepared to admit you don't actually need a car that can drive up a mountain, because you live in Weybridge – the BMW 5 Series Touring, all of which are flashier marques than VW. The Alltrack is selling itself on doing what it does really well – it's comfortable, smooth, the automatic gearbox felt powerful – while chucking in the ability to tow things and cope with a rotten winter via its four-wheel drive.
It's also hugely capacious. There are Londoners paying £500 a week rent, plus bills, to live in things smaller than the boot. The cabin is similarly big. I used it to take my two daughters and their friend to a birthday party. My kids fought continually, their friend favoured us with a deafening solo performance of songs from last year's nativity play and, to add to the gaiety, I couldn't work out how to turn down the satnav to a volume below ear-splitting. But the Alltrack still didn't feel claustrophobic. I wouldn't say I arrived home in a cloud of zen-like calm, but it didn't take that long for my wife to prize my knuckles off the steering wheel: further evidence, I thought, of the new-found maturity the Alltrack conferred.
Volkswagen Passat Alltrack 2.0 TDI
BlueMotion Technology 170PS 4MOTION
Price £31,030
Top speed 131mph
Acceleration 0-62mph in 8.9 seconds
Average consumption 49.6mpg
CO2 emissions 150g/km
Eco rating 5/10
In a word Adult
