FLEET demand for the new Passat estate could outstrip supply within weeks of the car’s launch in Britain, according to Volkswagen.

Response from the industry to the saloon version has been so strong that head of fleet Vincent Kinner is expecting high acceptance of the estate model to lead to some delays in delivery. Kinner said: ‘I think we have undercalled the potential of this car.

Estates have never been a big part of our business, but they have become more popular over the last 12 months – and as the launch of the new saloon has exceeded our wildest hopes, we could be in for a few supply problems.’

Speaking as Volkswagen introduced the estate version of its benchmark business car in Germany, he said: ‘The saloon has been on sale for only two months but the order bank is already 30% ahead of the demand we had anticipated.

‘Interest is running so high that I’m viewing the extra numbers as the tip of the iceberg because, in general, it takes leasing companies a few weeks to get all the variants of a new model on to their systems.

‘As our prime consideration is to protect the high residual values we’ve built up, our forecasting for future products tends to be conservative.’