Volkswagen Touareg 3.6 V6 FSI Review: Tour 'egg

Like the Land Rover Freelander 2 that we tested previously, the Touareg crawled through pretty coarse terrain without even hinting towards difficulties in coping, requiring precious little of the driver while reveling in it's element. Again, we must say that it is has more talents than what most Singaporean owners will ever harness.

Today, in this day and age, one would have to be a real character to buy a big, unpretentious SUV that warrants bragging rights and the knack of sticking your fingers up in the air in the face of environmentalists.

There aren’t many cars in Singapore that do so, and those that belong to this class are far more expensive. Take for instance, that the Audi Q7 with the same engine starts at a whisper under 250 grand, and so does the three-litre engined BMW X5.

The Volvo XC90 3.2 goes for a shade under 200 grand, and you can have the cheaper, 2.5 litre turbo for around the same price as the Touareg. Doing that gives you three rows of seats but not much more boot space, and it isn’t half as exciting to drive, nor does it come close to the Volkswagen in terms of driver satisfaction.

Volkswagen has always priced their cars a notch below the premium brands (and we hope they continue to do so!) like Audi, BMW, Volvo and Mercedes Benz, and they do that not because they play second fiddle to the big boys.

The only bad things I can come up with, really, are the "magnificent" fuel consumption when driven hard, the fact that one heats up the rear seats pretty easily, and a few reports of electronic failures while under warranty.

Nothing can’t be fixed though, and at a starting price of $184,000 (basic option), this might just be your next reason to rationalize that global warming is just a giant fallacy.

Credits: Text and Photos by Amery Reuben