Is it time to consider the VW Group franken-twins for off road usage?
With depreciation of the earlier models at a level that would make a Range Rover blush, they are now coming into the budget that normal people might pay for a vehicle they can use off road.
Much was made of their off road prowess at launch. Locking centre differential, low range gearing, height adjustable air suspension, hill descent control, cabin activated rear locker, traction control.
Price, road biased tyres and lack of aftermarket support meant all of the above was probably just to give them some showroom cred up against Land Rover, Toyota and Nissan.
Not to mention against the Porsche purists having kittens over the monstrosity that was Porsche’s first non sports car since the tractors of the 1950's, even in 2017 the Cayenne styling is still bloody awful to my eyes. Whereas the Touareg is that typical VW bland ahem, ‘clean’ styling. A bit of off road bling goes a long way though.
Of course, almost no one bought them to go off-road, but that’s not the point. Apparently the 911 is a thing of joy driven at the limit, how many newer 911 buyers drive their car even moderately fast? (Actually three in my experience, one was a blat round the back streets of Adelaide early one morning, that I happened to come across in my Mazda GT-R. We were pretty evenly matched, and it was great to see a 911 being driven with some spirit. The other two were having their own little ding dong down the A3 in the U.K. and I happened to be in a fairly serious Ford Sierra Cosworth when they went past...)
The early models have some pretty interesting specifications, the V10 turbo diesel Touareg, remember that?
Let alone the W12 model. Also both the V8 and turbo V8 Cayenne. Sure there are 6 cylinders models, but if you are going to roll the dice you might as well bet big, right?
Nicely named publication that one.
So they took off road cred seriously at the start, always worth a re-post.
Ok, I have never actually seen one of these off road in the actual world. Not even at a campsite, but that’s not to say it couldn’t or didn’t happen.
Looks like a whole lot of fun hey?
This would be my choice of spicy pepper, NA V8.
So these definitely fall into the Range Rover/RRS category for me. Of which both are probably better off road tools, and obviously Land Rover continues to make off road ability a priority.
Whereas the Germans have gone a bit quiet about that after those initial giddy forays. I guess the main thing with all of them is they all have the potential for financially crippling reliability issues, but this has always been the luxury car paradox. Just now you can get it in a 4wd...
