VW Passat 2.0 TDI SE Business comes in a lovely shade of blue

Asking me to review a car like the Jetta SE Business is like asking a food critic to review a tablespoonful of rice.

The VW Passat 2.0 TDI SE Business is “screwed together beautifully”.

Motor industry press officers are no fools. If a journalist asks to borrow a car to test, he is sent an all-singing, all-dancing, four-wheel-drive, top-of-the-range super-turbocharged model fitted with every conceivable extra.

The reasoning is simple. The journalist will be so impressed by the 250km/h top speed and the foldaway ski jump in the boot, he won’t realise the suspension is made from milk bottle tops and the dashboard consists of recycled video cassette boxes.

Volkswagen, however, is different. The Jetta I borrowed recently was in full rental-car spec, with wipe-down seats, wind-down windows and the sort of engine you’d find in a motorised pencil sharpener. Asking me to review a car such as that is like asking a food critic to review a tablespoonful of rice.

This is not because the Volkswagen PR man is an idiot. Quite the reverse. He is one of the few people in the motor industry I actually know and he has a delicious wicked streak. He sent the Jetta in Oxfam trim because he’d enjoy seeing me struggle to review it.

And now he’s done it again. Many journalists who have reviewed the new Passat have tested the 4x4 SCR R-Line version, with central heating and seats upholstered in whale foreskin. The model he sent round to my house was the 2.0 turbodiesel saloon. In SE Business spec. And don’t muddle that up with business class. Business spec in Volks-speak means it’s designed for the rental market and Tommy the taxi driver. It means you get four wheels and a seat.

Now at this point Paul — the VW PR man in question — is sitting at his kitchen table wearing the smug expression of a man who’s boxed me in. He’s thinking, “You’ve been waffling away for a while now, sunshine, but you still have 580 words to go. Let’s see what you’ve got.”

But Paul has made a mistake. Because the car he sent around had been painted in one of the most delightful colours I’ve seen in many, many, many years. It was very, very, very lovely. Really lovely. I’d like to describe it as a sort of dusky cornflower blue, or maybe the colour of a clear tropical sky just after the sun has done that green flash trick and slipped beneath the horizon. But neither of these things is quite right.

It could be described as the colour of cyanosis, the bluey colour that fingertips become when they’ve been starved of oxygen, but actually it’s closer really to the hue of the powdery flowers that blossom at this time of year on a Ceanothus thyrsiflorus bush.

White is now the most commonly chosen colour by motorists in Britain and I’m not sure why, because white really looks good only when it’s clean. Which means of course that if you do go down the white route, you will have to spend your weekends on the drive with a bucket full of soapy water.

There’s another issue too. Anyone who has a clean car is saying to the world that they have a tiny mind. People who wash their cars are telling passers-by that visitors are expected to leave their shoes in the front hall and that dogs are not allowed on the furniture. Furthermore, they are saying they don’t like or have sex because of the mess it makes.

In continental Europe, where people have a great deal of sex and there are goats and rabbits on all the furniture, the most popular colour appears to be grey. I was in Paris last week and every single car without exception was the colour of a prep-school boy’s shorts. It’s the same story in Rome.

Part of the problem comes from the carmakers, which at best offer a range of 10 colours. Bentley does a nice range, but my favourite — since Skoda dropped the Cotswold windowsill green it offered a few years ago — is Mazda’s candy apple red. That said, though, VW’s Ceanothus thyrsiflorus blue is right up there.

I realise at this point that I now have only a couple of paragraphs left to cover the all-new Volkswagen Passat SE Business saloon with 148bhp 2-litre turbodiesel engine and six-speed manual gearbox, but that’s fine. I’m not panicking — that’s more than enough.

So here goes. Ready? Good. Then we shall begin.

It’s a very handsome car that handles nicely, uses little fuel and is extremely quiet and comfortable. Everything is screwed together beautifully and everything is where you expect it to be. If ever I’m at an airport and the rental company gives me the keys to a car like this, I shall be very pleased.

There are now just 30 words left, which is enough to say that no petrol-powered versions are currently available but that an estate is.

There you go, Paul. I managed it. But next time I try one of your cars, can it please have a bit of angel dust?

VW Passat 2.0 TDI SE Business

Engine: 1968cc, 4 cylinders

Power: 148bhp @ 3500rpm

Torque: 251lb ft @ 1750rpm

Transmission: 6-speed manual

Performance: 0-62mph: 8.7 sec

Top speed: 136mph

Fuel: 64.2mpg (combined)

Price: £25,240 ($50,364)

Release date: On sale now

Verdict: I’ve got to fill in this part too? OK. It’s nice

Rating: 3 out of 5