FIRST RIDE New Touareg shows promise

Fresh looks and uprated kit for large SUV's mid-life update; Facelifted model is due to arrive in showrooms later this year

- Dennis Petermann

THE new Volkswagen Touareg is being put on ice - literally. In preparation for a refresh that will see it through the second half of its lifespan, the brand's flagship SUV has come to Arvidsjaur in northern Sweden to undergo cold-weather testing, and we've joined the development team to get an early taste of what we can expect.

The Touareg is more than two decades old as a model, and the current version was introduced in 2018 - so this is a relatively late facelift, by car industry standards. And on initial inspection it looks like a fairly mild tweak; there are presumably fresh bumpers beneath the complex camo wrap, but as far as the VW's engines are concerned, for example, things do appear to have been frozen pretty solid.

The V6 diesel is still available, and with the same two power levels - 228bhp and 282bhp. The V6 petrol is still there too, again with 335bhp- and across Europe, VW will continue to offer it as part of a plug-in hybrid set-up with two variants: 376bhp or, as the R model, 456bhp.