Volkswagen Phaeton

From Classic Car Life

The Volkswagen Phaeton (pronounced "fay-ton") is a full-size luxury sedan/saloon manufactured by Volkswagen Passenger Cars, and is described by Volkswagen as their "premium class".[1] Introduced at the 2002 Geneva Motor Show, and marketed worldwide, the Phaeton has been sold in Europe and Middle East markets from model year 2003 to present, South Korea from model year 2006 to present, and was sold in North America from model year 2004 through 2006.

The name Phaeton derives from Phaëton, the son of Phoebus (or Helios) in Greek mythology.

The Phaeton was conceived by Ferdinand Piëch, the then chairman of Volkswagen Group. Piëch wanted Volkswagen engineers to create a car that would overwhelmingly surpass the German prestige market leaders, Mercedes-Benz and BMW. The decision to release the Phaeton was, in part, a response to Mercedes's decision to compete directly with Volkswagen in the European marketplace with the low-cost A-Class. It was also intended to support the Volkswagen brand image, since the most expensive versions of lesser models, such as the Golf GTI, were starting to cost almost as much as equivalently-sized prestige brands.

The Phaeton is hand-assembled in an eco-friendly factory with a glass exterior, the Transparent Factory (German: Gläserne Manufaktur) in Dresden, Germany. This factory also assembled Bentley Continental Flying Spur vehicles destined for the European market until October 2006, when all assembly of the Bentley products was transferred to Crewe, England.

The Phaeton body is fabricated and painted at the large Volkswagen works at Zwickau, Germany, and the completed bodies are then transported about 100 km by special road transport vehicles to the Transparent Factory. Most Phaeton engines, the W12 being the notable exception, are built at the VW/Porsche/Audi engine plant in Győr, Hungary.Credit for this page must go to the excellent Wikipedia, the original page can be found here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Phaeton