New vs. Old: 2014 Mitsubishi Mirage ES vs. 2005 Volkswagen Phaeton

New vs. Old: 2014 Mitsubishi Mirage ES vs. 2005 Volkswagen Phaeton New vs. Old: 2014 Mitsubishi Mirage ES vs. 2005 Volkswagen Phaeton
Comparison Tests From the May 2014 Issue of Car and Driver

At this moment, the worlds of the new ­Mitsubishi Mirage and the 2005 Volks­wagen Phaeton collide below $20,000. They couldn’t be less alike if one car hovered on an anti-gravity field and the other ran on cheeseburgers.

The Phaeton is the manifestation of Ferdinand Piëch’s fanaticism. Back when he was chairman of VW, he willed the company to build a big sedan better than any Mercedes or BMW. But the Phaeton came out looking like a supersized Passat, just another trout in the traffic stream. Combine that with the prestige-free VW badge and the car was instantly obscure, heading into a Stuka’s screaming divebomb of depreciation. VW sold just 3354 Phaetons in America during three model years before it mercifully stopped sending them here. But the Phaeton never left production in Europe, and a new one is due this year.

Built in Thailand, the new Mirage aspires to nothing. It’s cruelty on tiny wheels; a Bangkok hack cynically redecorated for the middle class in emerging economies. The Third World deserves better. Here in the developed democracies, it’s an also-ran to the fine Ford Fiesta, engaging Chevy Sonic, dopey Toyota Yaris, and many used Schwinns.

Owner Mitch Marine’s gorgeous V-8–powered Phaeton carried an MSRP of around $87,000 in 2005. Today, it is worth about 17 percent of that. Of course, when something on it breaks, Marine will be paying to fix what is, in most ways beneath the sheetmetal, a Bentley Continental Flying Spur. That can’t be cheap.

But what is a life sentenced to the misery of Mirage worth? The one significant advantage it enjoys here is a 10-year, 100,000-mile warranty. It’s hard to imagine a grimmer automotive stay of execution than a decade in this thing.

The Mirage’s doors are big, so it’s easy for occupants to get in and out. Its tiny tires allow small wheel wells that don’t intrude, so the interior is accommodating. It’s austere, hard, and only slightly insulated, but roomy. Beyond that, the controls mostly work intuitively, the instrumentation is straightforward, and the rearview mirrors are shiny.

People's cars: Reducing the seat count to four in your Phaeton cost $7650, but included "sensitive" leather. The Mirage seats five, insensitively.

But its ride motions are awful and its driving experience worse. There’s a Paleolithic on-center dead spot in the steering, the nose crash-dives under braking while the tail gets squirrelly, and the damping is goofy. Mercifully, the car is not fast.

Rated at 74 horsepower, the Mirage’s three-cylinder, 1.2-liter engine starts with a tinny grind from the starter motor, sounds as if it’s mulching newsprint at idle, and screams a tortured, droning wail as it accelerates through the CVT to which it’s handcuffed. Zero to 60 mph takes 10.9 seconds—and the seconds of our lives are too precious to waste like that. The Mirage never settles down, it’s always making a racket, and it’s never, ever fun.

In contrast, the Phaeton’s 335-hp, 4.2-liter V-8 could have a Top Fuel cackle and no one could hear it idle under the massive hood. It’s hooked to a six-speed automatic that shifts with Nietzschean nuance. But it’s pushing more than 5000 pounds, and the all-steel Phaeton could use more power. In 2004, our test gear witnessed one waltz to 60 mph in 6.5 seconds with the quarter-mile going by in 15.1 seconds at 94 mph. Alas, the 414-hp 6.0-liter W-12 that was also offered has proven fragile over time.

There’s stoicism to the Phaeton that belies its berserk, obsessive origins. It’s not cuddly, but remote and isolated. The steering is light and the ride suffocating instead of engaging. If you want whimsy, do what the Germans do and drive it wearing sandals with black socks.

Practically any form of transport is better than the Mirage. Crawling is better than the Mirage. So the Phaeton wins. But that undersells this big VW’s appeal. It’s mag­nifi­cent in so many details. The Phaeton’s machined-aluminum, parallelogram trunk­lid hinges alone look more expensive than the entire Mirage. A dozen years after its introduction, the Phaeton’s tasteful in­teri­or is still stylish, lavish, indulgent, and comfortable. Every surface and part reflects a cost-be-damned commitment to quality.

And all that obsessive ridiculousness can now be bought on the cheap.

Size Wise

The 2066-pound Mirage is plankton compared with the two-and-a-half-ton Phaeton, which has 23 cubic feet more passenger volume. But the Moby Dick–sized VW’s trunk is 4 cubic feet smaller.

Runnin’ Down a Dream

While depreciation can put once out-of-reach vehicles on your reality-based shopping list, remember that running costs are reliable crushers of automotive fantasy. To wit:

Cost-of-ownership estimates provided by Vincentric, based on 7500 annual miles for sports cars and 12,000 for others. Residual values from Black Book.