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Photos: 2009 Volkswagen CC VR6 Sport

At first blush, the CC seems like the best car from Volkswagen yet. It features a beautiful body design, nice interior, powerful engine, and cutting edge cabin tech. But a few quirks let it down.

Wayne Cunningham
Wayne Cunningham reviews cars and writes about automotive technology for CNET's Roadshow. Prior to the automotive beat, he covered spyware, Web building technologies, and computer hardware. He began covering technology and the Web in 1994 as an editor of The Net magazine.
Wayne Cunningham
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2009 Volkswagen CC VR6 Sport

The new CC was originally designed as a successor to the Passat, but Volkswagen dropped that name and just released it as the CC.

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Better grille work

The grille is more refined on the CC than on recent Volkswagen models, keeping its chrome above the bumper. This CC also has high-intensity adaptive headlights that turn into corners.

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Engine

This 3.6-liter V-6 engine delivers an impressive 280 horsepower while bringing in well above 20 mpg in normal driving.

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Expensive-looking roofline

The curved roofline gives the CC a very good look, echoing the style of much more expensive cars.

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Rough suspension

While the suspension delivered a smooth ride on the freeway, on worse road surfaces the ride became rougher.

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Optional cabin tech

The VR6 version of the CC is at the top of the model lineup, so has many features standard in the cabin. But Bluetooth and navigation is still optional at this level.

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Two-tone leather

The two-tone leather gives the CC a very nice interior look.

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Steering wheel controls

The controls on the wheel spokes are well-designed, providing good functionality for controlling cabin tech while being mounted unobtrusively.

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Instrument cluster display

The display between the tach and speedometer shows useful information about mileage, range, and navigation.

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Six-speed automatic

The six-speed transmission has sport and manual modes, along with its normal drive mode. In Sport, it's not too aggressive, being a little late to downshift, but it holds the low gears well.

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Traffic flow

The navigation system is hard-drive-based, and traffic information comes over Sirius satellite radio. This map shows traffic flow on San Francisco Bay Area freeways.

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Traffic incidents

The traffic reporting feature also shows specific incidents, and will try to route around bad traffic.

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3D maps

Navigation maps can also be shown in 3D, although you can't see traffic in this mode.

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Audio sources

There are a number of music sources available, including the internal hard drive, an SD card slot, an iPod connector, and a single CD slot.

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Sirius satellite radio

Sirius satellite radio is included in the CC, as the car gets it traffic information over this network.

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Rear-view camera

The rear-view camera has excellent backup guidance, and a different mode for parallel parking.

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