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Hartmut Warkuß

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Volkswagen Phaeton

Hartmut Warkuß · 2002

The Volkswagen Phaeton was a full-size saloon and Volkswagen’s ‘premium class’ vehicle. Introduced at the 2002 Geneva Motor Show, it was conceived by Ferdinand Piëch to surpass Mercedes-Benz and BMW in comfort and engineering excellence—not performance. It used a bespoke all-steel D1 platform shared with Bentleys, diverging from Audi’s aluminium A8. It featured radar adaptive cruise control, the first V10 TDI in a production sedan, and hand assembly at Dresden’s Transparent Factory. Sales in North America ended in 2006; global sales ended in 2016 after 84,253 units. Production ceased in March 2016.