ATLAS HAS YOU COVERED
VOLKSWAGEN’S MID- SIZE SPORT UTE WILL EAT UP THE MILES IN SUMPTUOUS GRACE AND STYLE.
• The name says Atlas, but for Volkswagen, the debut of its first heart-of- the- mid- sizesegment sport ute should be named At Last. The German automaker, still shaking off the effects of Dieselgate, is moving past that debacle to concentrate on filling holes in its product lineup.
The Atlas, the company’s largest vehicle yet, is a sevenseat, family- oriented SUV that is not premium priced like the Touareg, but is targeting the Honda Pilot, Toyota Highlander, Nissan Pathfinder, Ford Explorer and a few others.
In the middle of Texas, where pickups and sport utes rule the road, the Atlas blends in easily, with a handsome yet conservatively styled look to it, offset by standard LED headlights and LED daytime running lights, plus available LED tail lights. This is a mainstream, U. S.built product designed to sell in large volumes, not some sort of standout halo project.
On the powertrain front, the company is playing it safe. The first Atlases, which will be in dealerships by June, arrive with VW’s proven 3.6- litre VR6 gasoline engine, mated to an eight-speed automatic transmission and pumping out a solid 276 horsepower. For the Canadian market, 4Motion allwheel drive is mandated for the V6. Showing up a little later in the year will be frontwheel-drive models powered by a 235- hp, 2.0- L turbocharged and direct- injected four- cylinder engine, also bolted to the Tiptronic eightspeed automatic transmission.
We’re in Texas hill country, where the pancake- flat topography and arrow- straight roads that define a good portion of the state give way to curves and elevation changes. Considering the Atlas’s size — a little more than five metres long and weighing 2,042 kilograms with the V6 — it handles these tarmac challenges with a lazy ease and slight, controlled body roll. Reserve some credit for the SUV’s Modular Transverse Matrix ( MQB) architecture; it provides a rock-solid platform on which to hang the mechanical bits.
Though it handled the t armac twisties without inducing wooziness — im- portant when fulfilling its role as a family- oriented hauler — the Atlas is a North American- style cruiser, engineered to eat up miles of pavement in sumptuous and quiet comfort. The V6 ( no 2.0- L models were available to test) is a smooth operator, if not the segment’s horsepower champ. There’s a slight coarseness under hard, prolonged acceleration, but otherwise nary a peep is heard from the engine, which made wind and road noise more pronounced than normal.
Not that it was needed on a pleasantly warm day winding our way to Fredericksburg, but the Atlas’s 4Motion has a drive mode selector that allows the driver to choose Eco, Normal, Sport or Individual, based on driving conditions. These modes alter the parameters of the SUV’s engine, transmission and steering, with optional adaptive cruise control.
Backing up the sport ute’s generally pleasant road manners is a full menu of available driver- assistance features, previously the purview of pricier models. These include adaptive cruise control, blind- spot detection with rear-traffic alert, lane-departure warning (which actively helps the driver steer the sport ute back into its lane) and parking- steering assistant. Forward-collision warning with autonomous emergency braking adds something called Pedestrian Monitoring, which will provide visual and audible warnings, supply increased braking pressure and, should the driver not react quickly enough, apply the brakes to help mitigate impact with a pedestrian and/or other vehicles.
Then there’s the automatic post- collision braking system. Volkswagen explains this as building on the premise that “a collision is rarely a single, instantaneous action, but rather a series of events that follow the initial impact,” the most significant of which can cause additional collisions.
The automatic post- collision braking system applies the brakes when a primary collision is detected by the airbag sensors, thus helping reduce residual kinetic energy and, in turn, the chance of additional damage.
VW Canada’s tagline for the Atlas is “size meets style.” Size the Atlas has; style is more subjective. Then again, the same can be said for much of the competition. There’s not a drop-dead gorgeous standout among them.
Although late to the party, VW has put itself in the game with a well conceived, thoughtfully executed and properly priced product that will deserve a serious look from buyers shopping the mid-size SUV segment.
Pricing for the new 2018 Atlas will start at $35,690 for the base 2.0- L front- wheeldrive Trendline. The model’s range will top out at $52,540 for the V6-powered Execline.