VW Touareg

Usually when I pick up a car, it’s a pretty laid-back affair. I rock up at the dealership, they hand me the keys and then I spend the next hour or so getting to know it. This, however, was not the case with the new Volkswagen Touareg. And this is because I met it during my time with Wiel Magazine in Cape Town. At the time it was being used as the tracking car for an editorial video shoot. And the car being ‘tracked’ was the Audi R8 V10 Spyder.

I was told to drive the Touareg and not to loose the guys in the Audi. Nice…

So let’s talk about the car, and the task it set out to do that day. We had the 3,6-litre V6 petrol version mated with Volkswagen’s 8-Speed Tiptronic automatic gearbox. This gearbox is superb and can swop gears up or down before you’ve even thought about it. The 3,6-litre V6 petrol engine is a gem, and produces 206 kW and 360 Nm. Power delivery is pretty constant and it has a beautiful V6 soundtrack to match.

The car I was driving was also fitted with the optional air-suspension system, and even though air-suspension systems have been criticised in the past, I really like this set-up. You could adjust ride height, and the firmness of the suspension. You have three options, namely Comfort, Normal and Sport.

While chasing the R8 up some mountain passes, I originally tried Comfort, which feels like you’re floating and is, ironically enough, very, very comfortable. But there is a downside, and that’s a fair amount of body roll in the corners. And with all the video equipment sliding around in the back, I decided to try Sport. This lowers the car and firms the suspension, and to my surprise, kept it extremely level in the corners. Fantastic. I then decided to stick the gearbox into Sport as well, and that’s when I discovered the Touareg’s sweet spot. Putting the gearbox into Sport causes the gearbox to up and downshift a lot faster. This combination turns the Touareg into quite a bullet, and a brilliant one at that.

Another interesting feature fitted to the vehicle I drove was ‘Lane Assist’. What this system does is monitor where the white line on the road is, and if you happen to veer over it, the steering wheel vibrates to warn you that you are moving onto the opposite side of the road.

When doing the actual tracking, I was asked to keep the car at a constant 60 km/h, which is no easy task considering I had a R2 million Audi traveling along side me in the right-hand lane and a camera man dangling out the back recording it. So I stuck the suspension back into Comfort, which ironed out every single road imperfection, and meant no bumps to take the camera man by surprise.

In closing, I know I haven’t mentioned braking systems and so on, but the honest truth is this vehicle is almost without flaw. And as you can see, my memories of it will always be fond ones. I take my hat off to Volkswagen, you’ve taken your brilliant Touareg and made it even better.