Tiguan's tale

Volkswagen aims to tackle the new Land Rover Freelander -- and other compact SUVs -- with a baby brother to its full-scale Touareg, and the Wolfsburg manufacturer recently announced its all-new contender will be named Tiguan.

The odd moniker was chosen by the readers of the German AutoBild group after a poll elicited more than 350,000 votes from 10 countries. In the end, the Tiguan name won out over the equally peculiar Nanuk, Namib, Rockton and Samun.

Due to launch internationally in 2008, the Tiguan will use Golf underpinnings to make the economies-of-scale equation add up. However, it will obviously differ from the Golf by virtue of its taller stance, pseudo off-roader styling and Haldex AWD system.

The project has been on the drawing board for some years, but VW provided the first tangible clues to how the Tiguan will shape up via the Concept A design study unveiled at this year's Geneva motor show.

The German marque has now followed up by announcing the name -- earlier rumours suggested it would be called the 'Beduin' -- and releasing this sketch of the proposed vehicle.

Whether or not VW would enter the segment was never in doubt. Booming sales of the Honda CR-V, Nissan X-Trail, Toyota RAV4 and outgoing Land Rover Freelander (albeit only in Europe) meant it was a no-brainer.

The Tiguan is expected to differ from the Touareg (a genuinely capable all-terrainer) by virtue of a more pronounced on-road bias. This is despite VW's claim that the Tiguan will be “suited to urban environments as well as rough terrain far from normal roads and thus provides the driver with absolute freedom.”

Volkswagen dipped its toes into the SUV fray with the accomplished Touareg in the latter half of 2003, but the vehicle's sales results haven't reflected its capabilities.

Local Touareg sales during the first half of this year numbered just 267. By comparison, the Mercedes ML found 1324 buyers, followed by the Lexus RX (1230 sales), BMW X5 (1126) and Land Rover Discovery (1029).

Volkswagen Group Australia officials concede the Touareg has underperformed and suggest the pricing structure and specification levels need to be reevaluated if the vehicle is to make inroads into the hard-fought luxury SUV category.

Overall, though, Volkswagen's Australian sales are charting a strong upward curve.

The brand's sales tally for the first half of 2006 stands at 9690 vehicles, compared with 7330 for the same period last year. Unsurprisingly, the star performer has been the Golf (4591 sales), followed by the Polo (1010), Jetta (916), Transporter (770), Caddy (539) and Passat (523).