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Tiguan seven-seater, new Touareg the first of five all-new VW-badged SUVs planned for Australia.
VOLKSWAGEN will introduce five all-new SUVs to Australia before the end of 2018, according to VW Group Australia managing director Michael Bartsch – starting with the crucial all-new Volkswagen Tiguan next month.
VW’s head admitted that its proportion of SUV sales is much lower than most competitors, carried by two ageing models (the about-to-die original Tiguan and the second-gen Touareg launched five years ago), but that’s about to change.
The fourth Volkswagen SUV will be based on the next-generation Polo, giving the brand a much-needed entrant in the booming small SUV market (particularly important in Europe). Expect a concept to appear at the Paris show in October (or possibly Geneva next March) before the production vehicle makes its debut in Europe before arriving in Australia some time in 2018.
The fact it’s reportedly based on the old US-market Volkswagen Passat – itself underpinned by last decade’s PQ35 (Golf V) platform, not the lighter and more modern MQB set-up of the European car – points to its volume-selling ambitions in the huge US SUV market, where size, price, and features are more important than cutting-edge driving dynamics.
While an updated Amarok will land here in November, headlined by a new 165kW V6 TDI variant, its design is approaching seven years old, meaning a 2018 Amarok-derived SUV will likely be based on the next-generation model.
Given reports that the next Amarok utility will lob in 2019, the seven-seat, passenger carrying derivative is likely to front-up first.
