Wolfsburg, Germany  - Volkswagen's luxury flagship, the Phaeton, will be fitted with a new infotainment generation and more fuel-efficient engines for the 2009 model year, the car maker has announced.

The RCD 810 and RNS 810 infotainment systems were redesigned for the Phaeton with high-resolution 8-inch touchscreen.

It features numerous multimedia functions such as an MP3 player, auxiliary hybrid TV tuner (option) and "Premium" prep for Bluetooth mobile telephone that can be ordered as an option. The navigation system loads the map data it needs from a 30-gigabyte hard drive integrated in the RNS 810.

Higher-level menus are selected using eight keys added to the left and right of the touchscreen. The signal from the optional rear view camera is also transmitted to the screen. An optional extra is a new 1,000 Watt strong high-end sound system from Danish hi-fi specialist Dynaudio

New to the Phaeton engine line-up is a V6 petrol direct-injection engine (FSI) with an output of 206 kW/280 hp. Compared to the previous engine, the V6 FSI offers a performance gain of 39 hp, while consuming 0.4 litres of less fuel per 100 kilometres. All four petrol and diesel engines comply with the new Euro-5 emission standard. (dpa)