Drive them both !

["Jouko Haapanen" <joukoh@vtoy.fi>]

Before drawing any conlusions as to the Volkswagen Group's platform
policies, I recommend you spend some time in cars off the same platform.  I
have (I have to) done so, and lo and behold, the Passat is not an Audi
competitior in most cases.  I'll admit these a cross-over area, but for the
most part, the cars should attract different customers.  I would gladly pay
the 10% extra to get a similarily equipped A4 (only smaller) over the
Passat, but I am a car guy.  Don't get me wrong the Passat is outstanding,
but I don't see it as being as desirable aas A4.  Bread and butter yes, but
very outstanding at it.  The A4 iin the right guise still gets my pulse
going after three and a half years of us selling them.  I won¨'t even go to
the Skoda Octavia/Audi A3/Seat Toledo II/Golf IV comparison.  

They are very different animals to drive, and as an engineer (here we go
with this again :-) ) with automotive R&D experience I must conclude that
the steel pan etc. shared by the cars do not make them identical.  The
chassis tuning is done by spring/shock/anti-roll bar selections. 

Jouko Haapanen
Pori, Finland