Volkswagen South Africa has confirmed the facelifted Passat revealed ahead of an official debut at the upcoming Geneva International Motor Show will not be coming to local shores.
“The Passat will be discontinued for the South African market, so there is no facelift coming to SA,” the local arm of the Wolfsburg-based firm told CARmag.co.za, before suggesting the sleekly styled Arteon fastback (21 of which were sold in SA in January) would fill the void.
VW SA furthermore said the segment in which the Passat found itself was “not doing too well” locally, adding that sales of the sedan had fallen to fairly low levels of late. Indeed, the outgoing Passat was on our list of slowest-selling vehicles for the month of January 2019.
Of course, the Passat is not the first big-name sedan to leave South African shores thanks to lagging sales, with the likes of the Mazda6, Ford Fusion, Honda Accord, Hyundai Sonata and Kia Optima having exited over the past few years.
In addition, in December 2017 Volkswagen SA confirmed the new Jetta would not be sold locally, since the firm would not be producing the seventh-generation version of the sedan in right-hand drive (the outgoing, sixth-generation model, however, is still on the market in SA, with 72 units sold in January).
