Next Volkswagen Touareg shown testing in the snow

The 2023 Volkswagen Touareg has been teased winter testing ahead of its official reveal in the third quarter of this year.

The facelift for the now-five-year-old Volkswagen Touareg looks subtle, but the headline changes are a slight nip and tuck to the exterior and an upgraded chassis to improve the ride and handling.

As you can see from these official photos of its facelifted flagship large SUV testing in sub-zero conditions in Lapland, Sweden, VW designers have updated the front-end by adding a narrower grille, more pronounced air intakes for the front bumpers and a pair of headlights with the German car-maker's latest technology.

The new IQ.Light HD matrix headlights include 38,400 micro LEDs that are now connected together via a thin lightbar.

At the rear there's a new illuminated VW badge that glows red for the first time on a Volkswagen, plus a tweaked lower half of the bumper.

What look like different 21-inch alloy wheels appear to complete the updates, meaning there are unlikely to be any sheetmetal changes.

Inside, the huge 15-inch infotainment touch-screen carries over, but VW says the system now runs upgraded software that brings natural-speak voice control, wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, plus a useful lane-precise navigation system that uses HD maps.

For now, the multi-function steering wheel keeps its capacitive-touch buttons, but Volkswagen has already said it will phase those out for proper buttons as soon as this year.

Following customer feedback, the armrests and centre console panel are now softer to touch.

Under the bonnet, the Touareg’s 3.0-litre V6 turbo-diesel carries over and is expected to still produce either 170kW/500Nm or 210kW/600Nm. All versions come with an eight-speed auto and 4MOTION all-wheel drive as standard.

Instead of more power, engineers focussed on fine-tuning both the Touareg’s chassis – specifically, both the steel-spring and air suspension to deliver a larger differentiation between comfort and sport modes.

The chassis tweaks also include the addition of a new roof load sensor that re-calibrates the stability control when a roof box is installed to enhance vehicle stability, especially at the roof’s maximum load capacity of 100kg.

The freshly-updated Volkswagen Touareg will continue to be made at the Volkswagen Group's Bratislava, Slovakia plant alongside the Audi Q7/Q8, Porsche Cayenne/Cayenne Coupe and the Bentley Bentayga.

It’s primed for launch in the European summer (mid-2023), but VW’s refreshed flagship SUV won’t touch down in Australia until next year.

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