Of the host of features they’ve crammed into the Passat, here are some of the niftier, cooler and more useful ones — Park Assist, where an electronic brain squeezes you into a parking spot 25-40 cms more than the car’s dimensions, be it parallel or perpendicular parking. Works like a charm in real life. The xenons have Dynamic Light Assist, an intelligent lighting system that shapes and masks the light beam to assist your visibility without blinding oncoming traffic. Equally impressive is a first on a VW — city speed automatic emergency braking. Simply put, below 30 kph, if you don’t brake in time, it will brake for you using its radar cleverness. Impressive as it might be, it remains to be seen if and at what price this cutting-edge tech comes to our shores.

Less gadgety but useful nonetheless is the Lane Assist system, intelligent radar-guided Adaptive Cruise control and the ability to open its bootlid by gently kicking it’s butt, er, boot.