My Daily Driver: @VW_What's FOUR W12 VW Phaetons

1. How did you come to the decision of buying this car?

Four of the same car count as one daily driver, right? Let’s start from the beginning. My wife and I had been in love with the mid-90s GM B/D bodies for 10 years, with her daily driver being a ’95 Buick Roadmaster Wagon and mine being a ’96 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham. Although both of those were extremely reliable, quick and had a great cushy ride, the safety features just didn’t measure up to today’s standards anymore and my wife was facing a 150 mile commute a couple times a week. So it was decided to look for a more modern daily driver with the same creature comforts, soft ride and of course size, that we were used too. Well, a new luxury sedan wasn’t in the cards and even 7 year old Audi A8s and Mercedes S-series were still too expensive plus I’m always tending towards unusual, unique, contrarian cars so those would have been a little too mainstream anyway.

Fortunately, thanks to Dr. Piech’s crazy pet project, there was the VW Phaeton, a car that pretty much ticked all our boxes. Fortunately for us, the Phaeton was a total sales flop in the 3 years it was sold in the US and as a result the resale values were abysmal.  Of course the problem was that on paper a Phaeton was ideal but we wanted to make sure to test drive one first before committing to buy one. Although the prices were affordable, there were no Phaetons for sale locally. I kept monitoring the used car market for three months but none would come up. Meanwhile I ran across the VWVortex Phaeton Forum, an excellent resource for all Phaeton drivers and a very active community. There I noticed a local Phaeton owner, just a couple towns over so in a desperate move I messaged him if he would be willing to just show us his Phaeton and we’d invite him out for lunch. Well, this turned out to be Tamerlane himself! He was gracious enough to let us check out his Phaeton and even take it for a drive at the end of which we both were sold on it. As luck has it, Tamerlane was ready to let go of his V8 Phaeton so we ended up buying his and boy, did that start another story!

As any prudent Phaeton owner knows, spare parts are always good to have but having a parts car is even better. So a year into blissful Phaeton ownership I got the opportunity to buy a cheap, high miler, one-owner, 4-seater Phaeton in LA. It had some quarter panel damage from a parking lot accident but was otherwise dealer maintained from day one, had a clear title and was fully roadworthy. Perfect parts car I thought, flew down there and drove it home. By the time I got home it was clear that this Phaeton was too nice to part out so I bondo-ed it up on the cheap, did some maintenance and figured I drive it a year before I part it out. Not so, 6 years and 35k miles later we still enjoy driving it. Well, now having two daily driver Phaeton meant a search for another parts car was even more crucial. Fast forward a year later, a wrecked W12 comes up locally at an insurance auction and I jumped on the opportunity. Well, turns out it had only cosmetic damage so I rebuilt it myself, got it titled and it’s been our third Phaeton in the daily driver rotation.

Of course driving a W12 takes the Phaeton experience to another level, let’s just say once you go to 12, you’ll never go back! The W12 was becoming very popular in my household so logically this meant we “needed” another W12. We found a nice blue W12 and now having 4 Ps was starting to feel a little excessive even for us. Tamerlane’s V8 had become a garage queen by now owing to the fact that it was a low miler in pristine condition so we passed it on to another Phaeton lover. After that I finally found a V8 parts Phaeton that was too far gone to restore and even a W12 parts car, damn, we were back up to 5 Ps! So the V8 was parted out but then Tamerlane sends us a local CL ad for a pristine low miler W12. You probably can figure out where this is going … after only paying 13% of its original 2004 MSRP of $103,000, it now resides in our garage … and we are back up to a total of 5 Ps. Btw, a friend of us in Philadelphia also has 5 Phaetons, one for himself, one for the wife and each kid and a spare so it looks like we are not the only ones that are that Phaeton crazy.

2. What has your ownership experience been like?

Nothing like the high-maintenance stereotype nightmare stories that we hear all the time. In the seven years we have been driving Phaetons none has ever stranded us and since I do all maintenance and repairs myself, it’s been pretty affordable also. Of course there are always some minor issues like the infamously temperamental TPMS system or the automatic trunk opener getting confused. However, nothing besides expected maintenance in line with the car’s age (suspension bushings, axle boots on the W12s, timing belt on the V8). Even the nightmare stories about having to replace all four air struts and the controller for about $10k if one strut fails, have been proven to be not true and aftermarket rebuilt struts are now readily available (that’s the advantage of sharing the same struts with the Bentley Continentals which are way more common here) and can be replaced one at a time.

From a driving standpoint it’s just amazing, a perfect road trip car. Due to the 4-corner air suspension with adjustable damping settings, it can be a floaty magic carpet ride one day and a sporty harsh ride the next. This car is just built to cruise on the freeway, has amazing stability and is SOOOO quiet inside, thanks to the dual pane windows all around, that it’s easy to forget that you are approaching triple digit speeds. Of course any freeway onramp is just plain fun with the W12s!

3. What is your fondest memory with this car?

Owning a fleet of them has meant lots of great memories. From the occasional twitter & Instagram posts when somebody drives by our place and realizes there’s >1 Phaeton parked out front, to car-people getting all excited on the freeway when they realize there is a Phaeton next to them, especially so in the W12s. However, meeting all the other wonderful Phaeton-crazy people that we have crossed paths with (Or is that crazy Phaeton people?) are my fondest memories and number one is definitely getting to know and becoming friends with Tamerlane himself.

A particularly cool memory is the fact that there’s a local kid out there now that got a Phaeton as his first car. His dad had bought a Phaeton with a bad engine a year ago and it was just sitting in his driveway. He bought the engine & trans from my parts car and got his Phaeton running and all fixed up and recently, when his son had his 16^th birthday, he gifted it to him.

Another unforgettable memory was our visit to the Transparent Factory in Dresden, Germany, at the time when Phaetons were still being built there. Being a Phaeton owner meant you got a personal tour of the “Atelier” (the huge room where you customize your Phaeton, think whole cow hides in every color, all wood trim options, wheels, paint colors …) and, after donning a white lab coat, they would let you out onto that famous Canadian maple floor production line. Somewhere out there is a Chinese spec Phaeton that had the “marriage” of body and chassis initiated by me because the workers let me start the fully automated bolt robot.

4. Why do you love cars?

That’s the hardest question to answer. I think people are either born with that car-crazy gene or not. I love the feeling of freedom and adventure that the car brings, driving down the open road, and all the different possibilities you can find there. But I also enjoy learning about the history and impact of cars on society over the decades, all the different models manufacturer came up with in different countries. Last but not least, I really enjoy working on my cars and getting the satisfaction of fixing an issue. It requires complete focus and to me at least, is relaxing … at least until the O-ring on the cooling line to the W12 alternator springs a leak and you need to drop the whole drivetrain to fix it :-) Just kidding, there’s a work-around for that!

---

If you would like to participate, just answer the above four questions and submit one to three photos of your daily driver to milhousevanh at geemail. Thanks and have fun!