The safety experts at Euro NCAP have not yet tested the Volkswagen CC. However, with the standard Passat achieving a top mark of five stars we would expect the CC to do just as well. As well as the usual standard safety kit such as stability control and driver’s and passenger airbags, there are also a selection of additional safety devices. The CC gets fatigue detection and this recognises if the driver is becoming tired and warns the driver to take a break.

There’s an optional traffic sign recognition, which displays speed limit signs and other warning signs on to the sat nav. Also on offer is the lane-change assist. This warns the driver if there is a car behind them in their blind spot with a light on the corresponding wing mirror, while lane-keeping assist will vibrate the steering wheel and move it back in to lane if the car crosses the white line without the driver indicating.

Despite the coupe moniker, the Volkswagen CC is quite practical. To start with, there is a rather useful 452 litres of luggage capacity. The rear seats can also be folded 60:40 to make room for longer items. It’s incredibly easy to drop the rear seats too. There are two handles in the boot: pull them and the seats fall almost flat – there’s none of the clambering around the rear of the car trying to get them down.

Buyers can also specify an automatic boot opening. If the driver has the keys with them, they just need to swipe their foot under the rear and the boot opens automatically. While the official figures show a more than useful load space, the opening of the boot is quite narrow and shallow, which could make it awkward if you’re trying to load larger items in the back.

Visibility out of the back isn’t great either due to the small rear window.