Tim Blair

VOLKSWAGEN TOUAREG

(This article first appeared in the Sunday Telegraph)

What happens when a Rolls-Royce and a Tonka truck are cross-mutated in a nuclear accident? You end up with the Volkswagen Touareg V10 TDI. Watch it flatten mountains! Listen to it roar! Actually, you don’t hear the twin-turbo five-litre diesel V10 so much as feel it. This engine is a primal force. It’s like having your very own domesticated volcano.

The Touareg’s specifications are a little intimidating: 230 kilowatts of power and 750 Newton metres of torque, which is more metres than Newton ran in his entire life. With that much torque available, grabbing reverse too quickly could snap the continent in two. Or at least launch your drinks out of their holders. Either way, some environmental damage is assured.

So exercise caution. Especially when towing, because these gigantic power reserves can easily make you forget you’ve got something big hooked up behind you -- up to and including objects the size of Randwick.

Or another Touareg. At 2,500 kilos, this unit is equal in mass to the entire Tongan royal family. Behind the wheel, of course, you’d never guess. Steering is light and sharp (helped by tarmac-friendly low-profile tyres), acceleration is extraordinary (0-100kmh in seven seconds or so), and the brakes are outrageous spaceship-sized mega-discs that halt progress more effectively than a Greens-controlled Senate. You haven’t seen calipers this impressive since the last polio outbreak.

Speaking of Greens ... they mightn’t cope too well with the Touareg’s interior. Is walnut an endangered tree species? It might be, after a few years of Touareg production. Global cow stocks seem to be holding, however, so there’s no threat to the Touareg’s delicious seats and other cow-coated trim. Interior quality -- in materials, design, and production -- is world-leading, and soothing in the manner of a English gentlemen’s club. Subsequent upgrades may include a butler.

And then there are all the gadgets! Flipper-style manual override shifters for the six-speed auto. Seats that heat. Variable suspension settings. Independent climate controls for the driver, front passenger, and both rear passengers. Keyless entry and ignition. Sunroof. Enough airbags to refloat the Titanic. Parking beepers to help you avoid unpleasant Hyundai-squashing incidents. Satellite navigation that points out the location of shopping centres, fuel stations (not needed as frequently as might be thought), and the houses of cute women whose husbands are at work (sorry - again, that feature isn’t due until the next upgrade).

Naturally, you can’t expect to buy into all of this with a couple of shopper dockets and a tax refund. The V10-equipped Touareg (an African word meaning: "Two shopper dockets and a tax cheque? Get out of here!") will set you back around $140,000.

Which nonertheless represents tremendous value. The technology supplied in a Touareg would have been inconceivable for a publically-available device only a decade or so ago. Go back a little further, and the only machines capable of transporting so many people in such speed and comfort across continental distances were known as aircraft.

You don’t think we live in a golden age? Consider this: the average worker needs 148 weeks’ earnings to afford a Touareg TDI. In 1960, the same amount of work got you a big Dodge -- with leaf-spring suspension, biscuit-dimension brakes, and a text-based (“map”) navigation system. And a speedometer that ran to perhaps 120 mph, rather than the Touareg’s 320 km/h (!).

One final note. I took a journalist friend -- who has spent considerable time aboard US Air Force One, and in other cashed-up surrounds -- for a brief drive. Afterwards, he didn’t want to get out. "Please," he said, "can I live in this?"

(Previous car items here, here, and here.)

Posted by Tim Blair at June 8, 2004 02:39 AM