Going The Extra Mile

Volkswagen's Latest Flagship Is a Tech-laden Suv That Wants a Piece of Bmw, Mercedes, and Audi…  We Drive It in Austria to See How It Ranks Up

- Dejan Jovanovic

This is the most technologically advanced Volkswagen you can buy today. It’s the post-Piëch Phaeton, grand in everything but ambition. Let’s face it, the failed Phaeton took on too much — it took on Bentley.

The third-generation Touareg (although you can spec it up to 100,000 euros here in Europe with taxes) stays only somewhat more grounded going up against BMWs, Mercs, and Porsches and Audis. Volkswagen’s own brands.

Take the crisp 12in driver’s display in high definition, something Volkswagen keeps calling ‘innovision’. In the Ingolstadt dialect, a few hours south of Wolfsburg, it’s pronounced ‘Audi Virtual Cockpit’.

In order to take its latest Touareg SUV upmarket and really stand neck and neck with X5s, GLCs, and Audis, Volkswagen’s made it… an Audi.

This is a serious bit of kit, headlining Volkswagen’s line-up as the company’s flagship SUV despite the bigger US-built Terramont soon to arrive in the Middle East. That seven-seater comes on the Group’s MQB platform, the same one as the humble Golf, and the two-seater Audi TT. This kind of commoditisation means it will start from under Dh200,000, whereas a loaded Touareg will likely be around Dh300,000 with potential for more.

See, the Touareg is an MLB car, which makes it related to the Bentley Bentayga and Lamborghini’s 305kph Urus, as crazy as that sounds.

A million Touaregs have been sold since 2002, and the Germans expect most buyers of the new third-gen model to come straight from the old car. Volkswagen people in Austria at the launch talk a lot about customer research and you can imagine the focus groups, so perhaps it is a committee-car with a distinct corporate character. It’ll blend in, but it shouldn’t be ignored.