AUSTRALIAN NEW CAR & SUV BUYER’S GUIDE | 9V
W’s third-generation
Touareg is now on sale,
priced at $89,990 for
the Launch edition.
As with previous models,
Touareg shares factory DNA with
the Porsche Cayenne and Audi Q7.
Touareg is signifi cantly cheaper —
VW did start life as The People’s
Car, after all — so you get a lot
of premium German design,
technology and engineering at a
reasonable price.
The 2019 Touareg’s focus is
effi ciency, luxury, safety and
digital infotainment. Leather,
a power tailgate, heated and
cooled front seats, 20-inch
alloys, LED matrix headlights
and four-zone air are standard.
Driver-assist safety tech
includes basic semi-autonomous
driving functions such as lane
keeping and automatic following
in close, low-speed traffi c.
VW’s all-digital instrument
panel is part of an $
technology option package;
navigation and full smartphone
integration are standard.
It’s a larger wagon than its
predecessor, now slightly longer
than 5m, and with a useful
increase in boot volume to 810
litres, yet the use of lightweight
aluminium and high-strength
steels in VW’s MLB platform has
seen a reduction in weight of just
over 100kg to 2070kg.
A carryover 3.0-litre V
turbodiesel, also used in the
top-spec Amarok, does the
honours, with 190kW of power
and 600Nm of torque. More
powerful variants may follow
later in the year, along with
a 310kW/900Nm 4.0-litre V
turbodiesel that’s claimed to
launch the Touareg from rest to
100km/h in just 4.9 seconds.
An eight-speed automatic
is standard, along with VW’s
latest 4Motion all-wheel-drive
system that, in the absence of a
dual-range transfer case, has a
torque distributing, auto-
locking centre differential and
specifi c off-road drivetrain
mode. Standard air suspension
allows for varying ride
heights to be selected, up to a
maximum of 258mm.
All-wheel steering and active
anti-roll bars are optional.VOLKSWAGEN TOUAREG
THE NEW MODEL DIARY JUNE–DECEMBER 2019