As a kid, I used to watch a game show called Bullseye.

As the name suggests, it was a darts-based contrivance, in this instance, hosted by an annoyingly ebullient chap called Jim Bowen. “What do you do for a living,” he’d ask the contestants and his response to whatever they said was always, “Super, smashing great.”

“Super, smashing great.”

But the very best part of Bullseye was the sheer unmitigated schadenfreude at the finale when Jim showed the inept darts players what they could have won. It was usually a Mini Metro or a speedboat and you’d see these poor saps crumpling like deflating footballs as they started imagining how a motorised dinghy might have transformed their life for the better.

Rumoured to be getting a 209kW 3.6-litre normally-aspirated V6 lump, sports suspension and a subtle spoiler-and-alloys exterior treatment, think of it as a GTI for people who thought they’d grown out of such things.

With the big-selling Commodore V6 shipping out, the timing appears ripe for Volkswagen to step in and capitalise on those looking to put a big, handsome and capable V6 sedan on their driveway. But we’re not going to be getting it and here’s why.

The only hope is that the car is so well received by the US market that Germany decides to follow suit for world markets and sell us an interesting Passat. The sole consolation there is that it would likely be better than the American car, but in the meantime it looks as if the schadenfreude is on us.

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