Just because you repeat something over and over again doesn't make it true. It just makes it annoying. How strange, then, that although we keep saying the Volkswagen Passat is the finest family sedan of our time—we've been going on like this for four straight years now—the overall Passat annoyance factor remains so low.
The car is the reason for this, not our deathless paeans to its greatness. In the face of reinvigorated competition from Nissan and Toyota, the Passat is still the only family sedan to rise above its quotidian category. The Passat is really an impostor, a luxury car posing as a family car.
From any angle, the Passat looks strong, clean, and—four years on—freshly minted. It owes its eververdancy to this: Although it's an increasingly common sight, we defy anyone's eye to keep from following the Passat down the road. This Volkswagen is all lupine grace, with an arched back, natural proportions, and an aura of muscular confidence. And that's just the exterior. Inside, the Passat provides better tactile satisfaction than a blue blankie.
So, if you think the Beetle is the only car that brought VW out of its doldrums, rethink it. The Bug may have been bought by more exterminators looking for a cute way to advertise their particular brand of insect genocide, but it was the Passat that made you reconsider that Mercedes-Benz C-class you always thought you wanted. It didn't manage that by being annoying, rather the opposite.