• Lots of lounging room front and rear
• Luggage space is generous
• It’s big, but easy to park thanks to impressive tech

How much space is there?

The Arteon’s large footprint means there is plenty of room for passengers. Up front, six-footers will find room to stretch out arms and legs, while those in the back have lots of head and knee room. A six-footer in the back can comfortably sit behind a six-foot driver.

Anyone in the middle rear seat is forced to straddle the transmission tunnel in four-wheel drive models, making this seat best suited to smaller children. The sloping roof, combined with a very dark interior, can make the rear feel more cramped than it actually is. A sunroof helps to mitigate this feeling by making the cabin feel airier, although it also cuts down on physical headroom.

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Boot space and storage

The Volkswagen Arteon is proof that you don’t need to sacrifice practicality when you opt for a slinkier, sportier car. It has an enormous boot, measuring 563 litres with the seats in place or 1,557 litres with the seats down.

That space is accessed via a large tailgate, which gives the Arteon an immediate edge over its four-door rivals. It’s also usefully larger than the Audi A5 Sportback (480 litres), BMW 4 Series Gran Coupe (470 litres) and the Peugeot 508 Fastback (487 litres).

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The plug-in hybrid model makes do with a 455-litre boot because its battery pack is stored under the boot floor. It’s a shame to lose the space but, to be fair to Volkswagen, it’s very common for plug-in hybrid models to have smaller boots than petrol or diesel equivalents – and 455 litres is hardly small.

All models come with keyless entry and a hands-free boot opening. This is particularly helpful if you’re returning to the car with armfuls of shopping bags or golf clubs, both of which we can attest fit easily.

Is it easy to park?

The Arteon may look sleek in the pictures, but it’s a large car in reality. It’s lower but wider and longer than the Volkswagen Passat. Happily, that length is comfortably under five metres, which means it isn’t so massive that car parks become unmanageably awkward. But you probably will want to check the dimensions of your garage before buying.

All models come with a rear-view camera, making parallel parking easier. Park Assist is available as an option too. This can parallel park and reverse park for you. It works smoothly, but slowly. It’s a lot quicker to do it yourself.

Safety

• Lots of active safety systems available
• The most cutting-edge are optional, though
• Arteon receives a five-star NCAP score

If it’s safety you want, the Arteon has it all. Euro NCAP gave the Arteon a five-star score back in 2017, reflecting the raft of safety equipment available – both optional and as standard. With its extensive range of active safety systems this score wasn’t unexpected.

The kit-list includes 10 or 11 airbags, electronic stability control systems and autonomous emergency braking – all of which we’ve come to expect from the latest cars. But the Arteon has so much more to offer. Its adaptive cruise control system, for example, monitors the prevailing speed limit and refers to sat-nav data (the Bend Assistant) in order to automatically adjust the set speed.

This is yet another step on the path towards autonomous cars, though not everyone will appreciate its good intentions, and don’t expect the speed adjustments to be infallible. In practice it generally works well, slowing down not just for speed limits but also junctions and other hazards. It also accelerates back up to new limits and steers itself very smoothly for short periods. However, the Bend Assistant, while clever, often annoyingly slows the car down to a much slower pace than you would travel yourself.

The Arteon also features a second-generation Emergency Assist system. Should the driver become incapacitated for some reason, Emergency Assist can now slow the car to a stop and steer it to the side of the road (say from the outside lane of a motorway to the inside).

Volkswagen’s Dynamic Light Assist system improves on conventional ‘cornering lights’ (which illuminate bends as you turn the steering wheel) by integrating this ability with a forward-facing camera and the sat-nav route data. This means it can illuminate corners before you’ve turned the steering wheel. Clever stuff.

Other safety systems include:

• The PreCrash system – which prepares the car in cases of unavoidable impact – now reacts not only to dangers detected by extreme handling changes and objects in front but also dangers from the rear.
• Traffic Jam Assist will take care of driving in congestion up to 37mph, using a combination of sensors.
• The Arteon also features an active bonnet to help reduce injury to pedestrians should you hit one. It pops off its mounts to create a landing pad.

Watch the Volkswagen Arteon Euro NCAP crash test