Volkswagen Touareg
REPORT 7
£58,335 OTR/£74,755 as tested/£613pcm
WHY IT’S HERE
Is this the thinking family’s Bentley Bentayga?
DRIVER
Adam Waddell
IN PREVIOUS LONG-TERM REPORTS I’VE OFTEN DESCRIBED OUR TOUAREG as the antidote to the Range Rover Sport SVR. The Touareg is sensible, understated and thoroughly inoffensive, while also being comfortable, reasonably quick (0–62 in 6.2 seconds) and an all-round pleasure to live with. The Range Rover Sport SVR, on the other hand, is the most powerful and fastest Land Rover ever with its 567bhp taking it to a top speed of 174mph. Despite the positive reviews, all that performance in a 2.3-tonne SUV feels at odds with everything that’s going on in the world right now, and its snarling engine note sounds like it’s giving the planet the middle finger.
When VW recently announced the launch of the aggressively styled and powerful Touareg R, I feared it had gone down a similar route. It’s got a turbo V6 petrol engine, unique exterior trim, black wheels and even a similar shade of lairy metallic blue paint that adorns many examples of the RRS. But here’s the thing – it’s also a plug-in hybrid that always starts in e-mode and will give you 30 miles and up to 87mph on e-power only. If you keep it fully charged and only do short journeys, it should be relatively green – but that changes as soon as you bury your right foot and the petrol engine kicks in. Mating a 336bhp petrol engine to a 130bhp electric one does mean that the car is offering two extremes, but it is good to see the VW flagship enter the world of electrification regardless. The petrol/ electric set-up is basically the same as that in the current Porsche Cayenne and Panamera, and the two engines are said to give a combined output of 456bhp, meaning that it should be pretty quick when we eventually get to drive it.
I have to admit that it does look good, but we’ll have to wait and see whether it makes more sense than our long-term 3.0 V6 diesel test car which, if I’m honest, I struggle to find fault with.