Bartek Sikorski

Fresh from directing Volkswagen's series of Safe Happens commercials, the king of one-take stunts Dan Bradley is spending his St. Patrick's Day under the Brooklyn Bridge, setting up the climax of the upcoming The Bourne Ultimatum's final car chase. Three new, second-generation Touaregs were supplied by Volkswagen for this scene, and two were destroyed filming head-on collisions the previous day. The other will meet its end shortly. On cue, the third Touareg punts Matt Damon's stolen NYPD Impala onto a concrete median, pushing it seventy feet before crashing into a utility truck, at which point a pneumatic ram launches the Touareg and Impala ass-over-teakettle, depositing them in buckled, twisted heaps on the ground.

The Bourne Ultimatum's New York chase marks the most prominent placement of Volkswagen's Touareg in recent memory and, if sales figures are any indication, its flirting with stardom can't come soon enough. The three vehicles wrecked in Bourne equaled a fifth of one April day's North American Touareg sales, and hoists in stature from an action films are fleeting. Something, obviously, had to be done.
It's been twenty years since the Range Rover introduced Americans to the concept that a truck can be both regal and capable - Queen Elizabeth in Carhartts, if you will - and since its introduction four years ago, Touareg has followed firmly in its tire tracks. Like the Range Rover, Touareg isn't all about broad shoulders and bushland berserking. It is immensely coddling, isolating its occupants from both rutted undergrowth and the city's concrete intestines with equal aplomb.

For 2008, Volkswagen pulled the covers off a refreshed Touareg, one that it believes is such a departure from the original that it's referred to internally as Touareg 2. We had an opportunity to experience it firsthand in Spain, where we navigated the claustrophobic streets of Barcelona and the rocky, pockmarked foothills of Monserrat Mountain in the new Touareg.

New, as it applies to the Touareg, is a bit of a misnomer. "It's a facelift," says David Goggins, Volkswagen's U.S. product and marketing honcho. "Of course it's a facelift." Exterior updates are limited to bolt-on parts. A new front end wears the Volkswagen corporate "waterfall" grille (chrome on V6 models, matte-finish chrome on V8s and diesels) flanked by polished "whiskers", and curvier headlamps with scallops for the low-beam reflectors give Touareg VW's familial design cues. Larger side mirrors are the high point of the truck's flanks, while Touareg's rump gets a redesigned spoiler on the roof's trailing edge and a pair of new exhaust tips. New wheels and four new colors round out the revisions.
Inside, there's a larger color display for the trip computer sandwiched between the speedometer and tach, which can now show pressures at all four tires and, when off-road, how many degrees of steering input the driver is feeding. The power seat controls have also been redesigned so they fall readily to hand - a frequent grievance with the outgoing model. A keyless start and entry system is now available, allowing the driver to unlock the truck with a pushbutton on the door handle and start it with a switch on the center console. A ten-speaker stereo with single CD is standard, and there's even a 620-watt upgrade from Danish loudspeaker builder Dynaudio, but multiple CDs still require trips around back to feed the optional rear-mounted six-disc changer. Models with navigation have an auxiliary input jack for MP3 players, but non-navigation models require a dealer-installed adapter that works only with Apple's iPod. To VW's credit, all Touaregs come standard with Sirius satellite radios and three months of service.

The old 3.2-liter V6 engine and 4.2-liter V8 were given their walking papers during the tail end of the 2007 model year, and were replaced by a 3.6-liter liter V6 and an upgraded 4.2-liter V8 cribbed from Audi's Q7 - little surprise, as both trucks are built at the same plant in Bratislava, Slovakia. The two engines carry over unchanged into the 2008 Touareg and utilize direct fuel injection (known as "FSI" in Volkswagen argot) to simultaneously increase power and efficiency, resulting in 280 peak horsepower at 6,200 rpm with 265 lbs-ft of torque from the V6, while the V8 makes 350 horsepower with 325 lbs-ft of torque on call. Picking the V6 will set you back $39,320, while a V8 is $9,000 more but includes more standard goodies like Cricket leather, wood trim and adaptive HID headlights.

The top engine choice, a 5.0-liter V10 TDI, rests comfortably at a power - and price - stratum higher than its gas-powered siblings. Nothing about the ten-cylinder diesel says "moderation", from its 310 horsepower and 553 pound-feet of torque, to an oil capacity rivaling a bucket of driveway sealer, to the $68,320 price of admission. Only allowed in the 43 states that haven't adopted California's air quality guidelines, the V10 will be phased out by the end of 2008, making way for a 225-horsepower 3.0-liter diesel V6 that uses urea injection to achieve 50-state emissions compliance.

The brakes have been given an inordinate amount of love for the Touareg redesign, with two new features: The first is ESP dry-braking, which uses the brake pads to massage the rotors at specific intervals, wiping away water-film buildup when it's raining. The other, ABSplus, lets the wheels lock up when on gravel or sand, creating little wedges of road material in front of the tires that shorten braking distance by up to 20 percent.

Two other new gadgets - a power tailgate and rear parking assist - are standard across all models.
The Touareg provided to us was a V8 model loaded to the gills with every option, including VW's slick air suspension that allows manual adjustments to Touareg's ride height, from a 6.3-inch squat for loading to a full 11.8-inch stilt walk for off-roading at speeds below 12mph.
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Mirage77

The Treg's a great off-roader, can't say the same for the rest of the German SUVs (except probably the Cayenne).

The matt-finished front chrome grill should be standard for the entire model range.

Bruce

I'm surprised. I didn't know that 8 cylinder Touareg had 350bhp..

Mirage77

Yup, upgraded from the old V8 - now it's the same one in the Q7, A8, etc.

Bruce

Ahh, I was not aware of that.

"the more, (hp) the marrier"

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