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Playboy's Bunny - Stylish CLS Send-Up or World's Most Expensive Golf?
Is it the world's cheapest Mercedes CLS-style "four-door coupe" or the world's most expensive Rabbit? Yes to both. Beneath this long, low, chop-top four-door coupe bodywork lurks the humble transverse-engine DNA of the workhorse Rabbit/Golf/Jetta/Passat. That key architectural difference explains why this fully loaded CC with a 280-horsepower 3.6-liter narrow-angle V-6 and 4Motion Haldex all-wheel-drive sells for $4000 less than a similarly loaded four-banger Audi A4 2.0T Quattro.
Relative to that corporate cousin, the CC is 3.7 inches longer, almost an inch wider, 0.4 inch lower and only 62 pounds heavier. Acceleration performance is within a tenth of a second of the Audi's to 60 mph and through the quarter mile. "Power is okay but there are definitely times when you need more torque going up hills," says Kim Reynolds. In fact, the torque-to-weight ratio is almost dead even between the A4 2.0T and the CC 3.6. Of course the V-6 exacts a fuel economy penalty (EPA city/hwy figures are 17/25 mpg versus 21/27 mpg for the Audi, both with 6-speed automatics and all-wheel-drive), and ordering the 2.0-liter turbo in the VW buys the port-injected engine, which trails Audi's direct-injected version by 11 hp and a more meaningful 51 pound-feet of torque. The 6-speed automatic includes steering-wheel shift paddles which add a certain sporting flair, but the automatic's "S" mode was not terribly astute in holding lower gears when lifting for a corner or automatically giving matched-rev downshifts to prepare for a corner exit.
Full Article: 2009 Volkswagen CC - Quick Test - Motor Trend
I'll take this now, my new favorite VW.
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