AS A brand, Volkswagen has long straddled the divide in Australia between quasi-prestige Euro and affordable mass-market – and sometimes uncomfortably so.

Now, though, a new catchphrase, ‘premium for the people’, resonates across the company’s various product lines. Gone, according to bosses, are the days of price-matching against rival brands for market share, while the local arm is – it says – working ultra hard on lifting the customer experience across both the shop floor and service bays of its dealer network.

This is where the new Arteon comes in. It’s unabashedly taking aim at people who might be considering a blue-and-white propeller or a three-pointed star on the nose of their next car, offering up an enticing level of genuinely cutting-edge tech at a bargain basement price that, according to VW, is not in any way a loss-leading exercise.

The Arteon – named, oddly, after artwork and the Chinese market Phideon sedan, the company’s largest – is sold in a single, highly contented spec level at a price designed to make BMW and Merc prospective buyers sit up and take notice.

Is it worth their consideration?