The new Volkswagen Up for a small car has surely come a big way. The car with its transverse engines under the bonnet and drive to the front wheels has been an eye opener. The new Volkswagen Up for a small car has surely come a big way. The car with its transverse engines under the bonnet and drive to the front wheels has been an eye opener. The car has shared as many as liabilities as possible and it shows in the final cost. Overall the Up looks like a car with no comparison. The smiling face, the glass tailgate which resembles a giant TV screen, the same square-cut, solid stance with a wheel pushed to each corner similar to the original Mini gives the car a refreshing look. At the front, the short and sloping bonnet is also a never before with a brand new three cylinder engine with a capacity of one litre. Even the radiator can be easily sneaked in next to it instead of sitting ahead, making the front end really short and sweet. Even the name of the car comes with a different style. It forms the middle two letters of Lupo, a former tiny Volkswagen, and the experts claimed about its similarity to the Lupo becoming the new car's name once in production. However the name ‘Up was too tempting to give up. The car comes in three trim levels of Take Up, Move Up and High Up. The car is also unique with a low thirst which invariably leads to low CO2 emissions. The base level Up with the five-speed manual gearbox does not quite slide under the 100g/km barrier.
Worldwide sales of the previous two generations amount to nearly one million units. The Touareg is as comfortable as it is dynamic and is also the most technically advanced Volkswagen of its era. Volkswagen is presenting the fully digitalised Innovision Cockpit for the first time in the new Touareg. Here the digital instruments (Digital Cockpit with 12-inch display) and the top Discover Premium infotainment system (with 15-inch display) merge to form a digital operating, information, communication and entertainment unit that hardly needs any conventional buttons or switches. Always-on, offering intuitive control and maximum personalisation - with the Innovision Cockpit, the Touareg provides the blueprint for tomorrow's digital interior today. Drivers use the Innovision Cockpit to adapt the assistance, handling and comfort systems specifically to their personal tastes; the car becomes 'their' Touareg. This opens up a world in which the driver and on-board guests no longer have to adapt to the car; rather the car adapts to them. Like a new smartphone, the Volkswagen is set up and tuned to personal needs.
This is made possible by a new high level of connected systems and programmes - controlled via digital interfaces and the multifunction steering wheel. The Touareg is launching with the largest range of assistance, handling and comfort systems ever to be integrated into a Volkswagen. The driver experiences these systems as a single unit in the new Touareg. They are simply there - interconnected via a new central control unit - working imperceptibly in the background and making travel safer, more convenient and more intuitive than ever. Compared to its predecessor, the third generation Touareg is moderately wider and longer. The new dimensions have positive effects on both the vehicle's proportions and its amount of interior space. The added exterior length leads, for example, to a significant increase in luggage capacity, from 697 to 810 litres (with rear bench seat up). Cargo there is hidden from onlookers by an optional electrically extending and retracting luggage compartment cover. Despite its increased length and width, the car body is 106 kg lighter because of its mixed material construction of aluminium (48 per cent) and high-tech steels (52 per cent).
In Europe, Volkswagen will initially offer two V6 diesel engines for the new 2018 Touareg with outputs of 170 kW / 231 PS and 210 kW / 286 PS. In a number of markets, this will also be followed by a V6 petrol engine (250 kW / 340 PS) and a V8 turbodiesel (310 kW / 421 PS). A new plug-in hybrid drive (270 kW / 367 PS of system power) is being prepared for China; its exact launch date in Europe is still open. Full specifications and pricing of the New Touareg for the UK will be announced in the coming months. The 2018 Touareg is an important milestone in the largest product and technology campaign in the history of the Volkswagen brand. The brand's range of SUVs is also being expanded comprehensively. It currently consists of the new T-Roc, the Tiguan, the new Tiguan Allspace (Europe) and Tiguan L (China), the new Atlas (USA) and the Teramont (China), plus the now completely redesigned Touareg as Volkswagen's top SUV model. Volkswagen will also be further extending the lower end of its SUV range with the compact T-Cross. The first all-electric SUV from Volkswagen is also a sure thing: the I.D.
