26 September 2023

Touareg Sets The Suv Standard

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By Paul Gover.

A Porsche for cheap doesn’t come along every day. Or decade.

How good, then, is the new Volkswagen Touareg that all-but matches the Porsche Cayenne with a $50,000-plus advantage on the showroom sticker?

There is more, too. The Touareg rolls on a Volkswagen Group platform that is also built up into the Audi Q7, Bentley Bentayga and – with some radical work on the engine and edgy body – the Lamborghini Urus.

Given the costly engineering that has gone into its upscale group cousins, the Touareg was always going to be good. But it’s better than good.

My first experience with the all-new Touareg was late last year, in Morocco, where the big German SUV wagon refused to be cowered or compromised as we tackled everything from Aussie-style pockmarked bitumen country roads to deep red sand dunes on the edge of the Sahara and deep stony river crossings.

Back home, things are just as nice.

The Touareg feels full-some and meaty in the way it sits on the road and the way it is finished, with upscale quality and one of the best driving feels of any SUV on the road at any price.

My test car is a 190 TDI, not the costlier launch edition, and comes in at $79,490 with a 3-litre V6 turbodiesel engine, eight-speed automatic gearbox and all the safety gear needed for a 5-star ANCAP rating.

It’s a big beastie whose bulk is disguised by smooth styling and lots of horizontal lines, from the grille to the tail lights, to reduce the visual impact. It looks like a slightly scaled-up Tiguan, although it is considerably bigger despite only having a five-seater cabin.

Those five seats comes with lots of room, supportive seats and plenty of USB outlets, bottle holders and infotainment that is intuitive with solid sound.

My only real niggle is the intrusive lane-keeping system, which jiggles the wheel and sometimes steers against my inputs to keep me ’safe’. It’s typical of VW Group and, thanks to EU policy, I have to dive deeply into the support menus on the touchscreen to turn it off every single time I start the car.

Oh, and sometimes my water bottle falls over in a cupholder next to the seat that is not deep enough.

The diesel engine pulls strongly, which will make it good for towing, and the all-wheel drive package – with driving modes chosen from a rotary switch in the console – sits in the background ready for action.

The Touareg is, for me, a unicorn. As a lifetime doubter on SUVs, both their perceived advantages over an old-school station wagon and their total inefficiency with huge mass and high running costs, this Volkswagen almost makes me a believer.

It’s not cheap, and it’s easy to tip over $80,000 by the time you leave the showroom, but it’s like the Golf and gives you more than you expect.

It also delivers on the promise of VW Australia boss, Michael Bartsch, to deliver cars which feel premium but are still for everyday people and not big-budget buyers looking for an upscale badge.

It is a lovely car to drive and if I had to have an SUV in the garage it would be my choice.

THE BASICS

Volkswagen Touareg

Price: from $79,490

Power: 190kW/600Nm

Position: mid-level family SUV

Plus: great design and engineering

Minus: intrusive lane-keep system

THE TICK: Absolutely

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