Today’s Nice Price or No Dice CC was VW’s take on the tiresome “four-door coupe” trope. That’s not its fault; to be fair, it’s a pretty handsome take. Let’s see how fair we might find its price.
Have you ever perused your local grocery store’s marked-down section? That’s where you find ticking time bomb perishables and less-popular flavors of everything else. The lower prices may be a siren’s song, but do you really want to eat any of that stuff? A similar conundrum faced us over yesterday’s 2013 Dodge Dart SXT Rallye. At $4,475, it was plenty cheap, but would it be wise to spend even that amount on an old, arguably unpopular Dodge with a pure, uncut Fiat drivetrain? Fortunately for the seller, a slim majority of you felt it would. The result was a 52 percent Nice Price win.
Hey, quick question: what’s your opinion on the automotive term coupe? That word derives from the French coupé, a term describing a “four-wheeled closed horse-drawn carriage for two persons inside with an outside seat for the driver in front.” In automotive parlance, coupe was long used to describe a closed-roof car with two doors. That all changed in the fall of 1962 when Rover introduced the P5 Mark II Coupé, which offered a rakish roof and… (gulp) four doors.
I’m a purist, and however much I like the P5 (and I do like it a whole lot), I still don’t fully accept the idea of a coupe with more than two doors. In my mind, it’s just bad juju.
That’s why I take issue with today’s 2014 Volkswagen CC VR6 4Motion Executive. Not the car itself, mind you, just with people calling it a four-door coupe owing to its sexy Flanders roofline. Fortunately, in VW parlance, CC doesn’t stand for Coupe Squared as you might imagine, but for Comfort Coupe, which is almost equally as befuddling considering its back seat is a good bit less roomy than its similarly-sized platform mate, the Passat.
During its 2008 through 2016 run, the CC was arguably the best-looking model in VW’s lineup. However, nothing lasts forever, and the company kicked the CC to the curb in favor of the less attractive and awkwardly named Arteon in 2017. That model, since, has also been given the heave-ho.
Over the course of its nine-year run here in the States, the CC lost the Passat connection in its name and gained a middle seat on the back bench. It could be fitted from the factory with either a turbo 2-litre four or an optional 3.6-litre V6.
This clean-title 2014 CC has the 276-horsepower VR6 under its hood. That’s paired with a six-speed DSG automatic—the only transmission VW offered with the six—and the optional 4Motion AWD system.
In fact, this car appears to be loaded to the gills with standard and optional equipment, making it not just a comfortable ride but also totally bougie. Some of the more notable features include leather upholstery, heated, ventilated, and massaging front seats, a premium Dynaudio sound system, and an electric rear window shade to keep rear-seat passengers from suffering sunstroke.
Painted in a mature metallic gray and wearing un-curbed factory alloys, the car looks pretty nice, too. The only noticeable flaw on the exterior is a missing tow hook cap. New winter tires are an added plus. The cabin is equally up to the task, and with just 67,632 miles under its belt, it isn’t even showing noticeable wear on the tactile surfaces.
According to the seller, the car is in “great shape” and would be a turnkey car for any new owner if, in fact, it started with a key. Instead, it has keyless entry and push-button start, so figure out your own metaphor. The asking price for this loaded CC is $14,495.
That feels like a lot of car for the money, or at least a lot of kit and caboodle. And it comes with that sweet-sounding and reasonably powerful 3.6 VR6, to boot. But is it actually a good deal?
What do you say? Is this decade-old and heavily outfitted VW a solid bargain at that $14,495 asking? Or does its heavy load of features and equipment presage problems down the road and hence demand a lower price now?
You decide!
Boulder, Colorado, Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.
H/T to James Bennett for the hookup!
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