Volkswagen Touareg Prototype 2019 Review - International

New identity

At last, in its third iteration, the Volkswagen Touareg has become its own man. Gone are the Porsche Cayenne doors, replaced by a unique design for the first time and carrying over into this new Volkswagen flagship its own sense of style.

Love it or be indifferent to it, but the Touareg finally looks like a machine that's found a path of its own.

That is exceptionally odd, because it's not like that underneath. What lies beneath is the exact same chassis as the Porsche Cayenne, with (almost) all of its core powertrain and suspension tricks.

Volkswagen will deliver all of this at a lower price than the Porsche, and it will deliver more again, with its unique Innovision curved multimedia touchscreen dominating the dashboard layout.

It's a complicated, but mostly at first until you get to grips with it. It's like the first time you used a smartphone or tablet, and it introduces a whole new way to run a multimedia display.

For starters, for the driver (on left-hand drive cars), the curved 15-inch screen's left-hand edge plays host to a vertical column of buttons (most of which were fixed, hard buttons in the old model). But you don't have to keep them there. If they're things you don't think you will regularly need, you just swap them out for another preference.

In some cases, you'll need to. We tried to find the instrument cluster dimmer switch, which is has gone from a dashboard button to hidden deep within the digital curved screen. Using it is a four-touch operation, ending with a digital slider much like on smartphones. We just simply moved the tile for the dimmer across onto the fixed-button area to bring it back to a more acceptable two touches.

There are other tricks to it. Swipe one way and you have a home screen page, where you can put any pictures you'd like to upload and choose between digital and analogue clocks.

It works with pinching and spreading fingers, and two- and three-finger do different jobs, just like a computer's track pad. Unlike its Audi and Porsche siblings, the Touareg's screen doesn't give any haptic feedback, but each change has a soft sound to confirm the inputs have been registered.

There will be teething frustrations with it, for sure, but it's brilliant to use once you've got the hang of it.

It's also less curved than you think it could be. Volkswagen designers fiddled with a range of different angles before taking a (surprise, surprise) conservative approach with a modest curve. Too big a curve, they say, and it locks out the passenger. Too small a curve and it invites reflections.

This way the curve is just big enough to notice arcing back around the driver and it could almost pass for a single, 23-inch screen because it starts where the edge of the eight-inch digital instrument cluster ends.

It's also cleverer than you give it credit for. Like all modern Volkswagens, the Innovision screen uses proximity sensors to enlarge some tabs as you approach them. Where the Touareg takes it further is by knowing whether it's the driver's or the passenger's fingers that are approaching and highlights the tabs appropriately.

If that's easy to use (after a familiarity process with only moderate swearing), the rest of the controls are a doddle. The cabin is remarkably free of fixed buttons, with the centre console instead dominated by the driving mode and off-road mode dials and the gear lever. And that's about it.

The steering wheel is familiar fare and the driving position is comfortable, with good visibility.

Power the pick over torque

We drove both the 210kW/620Nm diesel and 250kW/500Nm petrol Touaregs and found the petrol power to be comfortably the pick of the two.

The issue with the diesel isn't one of smoothness or consumption, but throttle pickup. Volkswagen's senior engineers explained that they knew about the problem, which they insisted related to the exhaust-gas recirculation and other emissions-cleaning technologies taking time to switch off again after the throttle has been closed.

It was something we assumed to be part of the pre-production process, but Volkswagen insisted it was something all diesel buyers (of all brands) would have to grow accustomed to with the new real-world driving emission and consumption related rules.

It's fine for driving along on highways with a big wave of torque keeping things moving, but it's more difficult on winding roads or gravel roads or even in busy city conditions. Then, when you turn in to a corner and get back on the loud pedal, it remains a quiet pedal for at least a second before the wave of torque arrives, frantic to make up for the tardiness.

The petrol engine doesn't have that shortcoming. It just snaps up the offered big throttle input and turns it into smooth, calm thrust. Immediately! It's abetted by a terrifically smooth transmission and grip that never feels as though it will run out.

It's a smooth, linear-sounding motor, too, with more than enough torque in the real world to punch the two-tonne Touareg along with surprising enthusiasm. The diesel does, too, and does it even better from lower rpm with only a handful more vibrations, but enthusiasm delayed. At least, it is when you're pushing the car enthusiastically.

Injecting Sport into SUV

And not only will you want to push the Touareg enthusiastically, it acts surprisingly as though it wants you to.

Just like with the Cayenne, the Touareg takes its staggering array of extremely complicated suspension stuff and turns it into simple, enjoyable, cultured cornering sparkle.

When Volkswagen people tell you it has things like three-chamber active air suspension, electronically governed active anti-roll bars and rear-wheel steering, some eyes can glaze over.

When you tip the big five-seat high-riding SUV into a corner and stand on the throttle, your eyes unglazed. It's so impressive that it makes a big car small, a tight corner loose, a slippery patch grippy and a long road short. Indeed, the third-generation Volkswagen Touareg is magnificently calm on highways, with scarcely a rustle from the passing wind and hardly a ripple from the suspension or the tyres or the road.

It's not just that it feels light on its feet (thanks to 120kg that's not there anymore), but it's astonishingly nimble for something this size. The rear-wheel steering helps, in parking and in handling and it all works seamlessly.

Even at this pre-production stage of development, there is no situation we found that turned the Touareg into anything less than a reliable, dependable, comfortable and unshakeable companion.

Everything that happens beneath the Touareg feels like the Cayenne, but a bit softer, a bit more relaxed. And that for 95 per cent of luxury SUV buyers is very probably a good outcome.

2019 Volkswagen Touareg pricing and specifications:
Price: $TBC (higher than the current Touareg)
Engine: 3.0-litre turbo-petrol V6
Output: 250kW/TBC (around 500Nm)
Transmission: Eight-speed automatic
Fuel/CO2: TBC
Safety rating: TBC