Volkswagen Touareg 3.0 V6 TDI 4Motion 2018 first drive

Our test car had two-chamber air suspension, active anti-roll bars and four-wheel steering too, mind you – all of which are likely to be optional fit at least at the bottom end of the Touareg range – but its centre diff-based four-wheel-drive system and eight-speed automatic gearbox will be standard.

The Touareg’s a five-seater with a boot that’ll swallow up to 810 litres of cargo before you start flopping over backrests. It has plenty of room even for larger adults in both rows, and up front the cabin looks and feels solid, classy and expensively hewn, though it retains a functional, slightly unadorned ambience. It’s luxurious without being lavish or ornate, as modern Volkswagens tend to be.

The wow factor comes from the Touareg's duo of large juxtaposed instrument and infotainment screens – the former 12in from corner to corner and the latter 15in – which butt up against each other similarly to Mercedes’ current orientation. You can configure the bigger of the two screens to your liking, to display navigation mapping, trip computer info or any number of other things, in almost any combination you want. The system’s called ‘Innovision Cockpit’, and though its complexity makes it less intuitively usable than some, it’s nonetheless very visually impressive.

On that familiar spot on the transmission tunnel you’ll find the rotary dials controlling the car’s adjustable-height air springs and its various driving modes – and, from ‘Eco’ and ‘Comfort’, through ‘Individual’, to ‘Snow’, ‘Sand’ and ‘Off-road Expert’, there are plenty of modes. Having sampled several of them, you’ll find that ‘Normal’ and ‘Comfort’ seem to suit the car best on the road, since they combine the Touareg’s first-rate refinement and isolation with a settled, quiet and comfortable ride; and handling that melds intuitive drivability with wieldiness and precision quite well.

In other modes, and particularly when that handling is examined with a bit of gusto, the Touareg proves quite agile in outright terms for a car of its size, but doesn’t make for a particularly enticing drive. Our test car’s various active suspension and variable ratio steering systems seemed to combine to take some of the predictability out of the car’s handling around tighter bends - that steering’s directness quickening quite suddenly at about a quarter turn of lock and with only artificial-feeling weight coming along with it. This made the Touareg’s chassis feel grippy but uncommunicative on mountain roads, and at its best moving at more relaxed pace.