Two-wheel drive Tiguan on the backburner

While revealing the front-wheel drive Tiguan offroader is on the agenda, Volkswagen Group Australia (VGA) managing director Jutta Dierks says the car is still at least 18 months away from local roads.

Dierks explains the reason behind the delay is the success of the car four-wheel drive model means VGA is eager to get the most out of the current line-up before adding to the range.
 
"That's not even a subject at the moment," Dierks tells the Carsales Network when asked about the two-wheel drive Tiguan's Australian chances. "We haven't even got the potential out of the other one. That's not an option, long-term definitely but not in the next 18 months.

"For us we want to get the potential out of the current range Tiguan."

Supply problems with both the diesel and petrol models have hampered the company's ability to maximise sales of the critically acclaimed car. Dierks says the sales downturn around the world has allowed VGA to obtain more stock of both the diesel and petrol models to satisfy current demand.

Dierks is so confident in the car that she believes it could surpass the Passat as Volkswagen Australia's second highest model behind the Golf. That would mean -- based on 2008 sales results that saw the Passat sell 3297 models compared to 1109 Tiguans -- the Tiguan would have to triple its 2008 sales results in its first full year on sale.

But Dierks insists she is in no rush to add the front-wheel drive variant in the hunt for more sales. Instead, she maintains she will stick to the company's long-term strategy for the car.

"What we usually do is bring a car in and after 18 months or 24 months you need to come up with either a new engine or new equipment or whatever because you need to keep that car interesting over the lifecycle," Dierks says.

"But with the Tiguan, the last year was not about market demand. We only delivered what we could supply, so we want to see what we can get out of the market. We think that Tiguan could be our second best-selling model.

"So we already have good supply now. We have 900 cars in the country. We have not even advertised Tiguan; we have not spent one single dollar on advertising because we could not supply. So we will probably run an advertising campaign soon."

That campaign is likely to wait until after the launch of the new MkVI Golf later this month.

And the front-wheel drive Tiguan isn't the only addition VGA would like to make to the local line-up. The R-Line version first previewed at the Essen Motor Show at the end of 2007 is still an outside chance for Australia in the future.

"It hasn't really [progressed] and I haven't seen anything for right-hand drive yet," Dierks says. "It would fit our strategy nicely but again I would wait until we have settled everything in the market."