We Drive This Barn-Find 2004 Volkswagen Phaeton, and It Still Impresses
VW’s most-expensive production vehicle was destined to fail in the U.S., but it shouldn’t have.
We recently published a brief history of Volkswagen's ill-fated Phaeton flagship sedan. Here's the lowdown: Volkswagen conceived the Phaeton at the behest of Ferdinand Piëch, the then-chairman of Volkswagen Group. The luxury sedan made its debut at the 2002 Geneva International Motor Show; it was manufactured in Dresden, Germany, in a state-of-the-art facility called Gläserne Manufaktur, or Transparent Factory (the same plant will now build the all-electric ID.3 hatchback).
While the Phaeton was successful enough globally to be produced through 2016, it only lasted until 2006 in the U.S. market because Americans had a hard time accepting a Volkswagen as an expensive luxury car. Our own Robert Cumberford had a hard time envisioning it in the showroom alongside VW's other more mundane offerings, especially with a price tag that started north of $70,000. Volkswagen ultimately sold just more than 2,500 units across all engine options in the U.S. This is the story of one of those cars.
2004 Volkswagen Phaeton: Basically a Barn Find
I got a tip from my dad that my hometown Volkswagen dealership had been servicing a W-12-equipped Phaeton; I reached out to its owner, who gave the greenlight to drive and review it. But the prospect of driving this pristine example of VW's one-time flagship made me nervous. As a life-long VW nut, I held the Phaeton in high esteem.
This specific example was found in a storage shed on a Volkswagen dealer's lot. The nose pointed outward, with no badge to show whether or not it had a W-12 engine. When Steve Cornelius, owner of Stevens Creek Volkswagen in San Jose, California, and his employees went around to the car's rear, they discovered there indeed was a chrome W12 emblem on the trunk lid. To confirm, they popped the hood and were indeed greeted by a 12-cylinder engine—and the family of rats that had made their home within its bay.
How did the car get there without the Stevens Creek staff knowing about it? Cornelius owns the storage lot as well as the dealership, and the Phaeton's owner stashed it there. The VW's owner eventually died before retrieving it.
As optioned, Cornelius's 2004 Volkswagen Phaeton wears Klavierlack paint over a tan leather interior, which was applied at VW's Zwickau facility, one of the most technologically advanced plants in its day. (The car famously shared its platform with the Bentley Continental and Audi A8.) Only 452 12-cylinder Phaetons were sold in the U.S. for the 2004 model year, so this was a fairly rare find.
