DJHJD

DJHJD

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Phaeton Phrenzy

So, last night I spent a few quality hours phiddling with the German Phaeton website, and looking at pictures of the 08 mildly re-styled Phaeton from the Geneva auto show. Holy crap! Now, I want to move to Berlin and live there so I can drive one of these Phaetons all the time.

The 2008 Phaeton. It's HOT. And it's not available here.

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First, there's this amazing piano black wood trim that one can order in Germany (and other, more advanced countries) that's the same thing one can get in a Bentley Continental (which, if you recall, is the same car, built in the same factory as the Phaeton.)

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They've also added a dash more dashing chrome trim...

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The taillights are just a bit more dramatic - designed to look deeper and richer, although the shape hasn't changed. Yes, I'm a Phaeton Phreak, I can tell the difference..

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The headlights are more Star Trekky with double projector beam bi-xenon lamps and the turn signal incorporated into the inboard projector housing, which is different from the long strip that used to run along the bottom of the headlight structure..

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More of the chrome increase, a view of the amazing, $4,000 "piano black" paint job and new wheels that are VERY COOL...

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This year, a DVD navigation system (which, from the screen prints still isn't quite as zippy as more updated systems, but at least everything's on a single disc with faster data access.

Anyway, I "configured" a German 08 Phaeton last night - 146,000 Euros. Now, let's do some math. A Euro is $1.35. $197,600. The same price as a Bentley Continental GT (for the same car, frankly.)

They sold for about 60% of that here, and still didn't have any takers. No wonder they pulled out of the market.

Speaking of REALLY expensive, the Andersen window people were here last night giving me an estimate - $8600 for six windows. Yurg. "We finance."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You can't do a straight price comparison between Europe and the US...they build the taxes into the price, and they are MUCH higher.

Piano trim is now available on some Ford models. Whoop-de-do.

If you like the Phaeton so much, you should just get a Lincoln Town Car. They're equivalent in terms of stature, you know.