Something that every American wonders at some point in his or her life is, would I have made a good pioneer? Of course, very few of us would make it after three full days without hot showers, cell phone service or deodorant, but that doesn’t mean we can’t test ourselves, right? That’s what camping is for, or hunting, or ridiculously unnecessary purchases of firewood that someone else chopped for us.
Adding to that list is exactly how off-road our luxury SUVs can reasonably go. Volkswagen is mindful of Americans’ deep-seated needs to be comfortable and prove ourselves, often at the same time, which is why they designed the Touareg with a suite of rugged driving technologies that can be flipped on like a light switch. No, that’s not dramatic enough. A knob’s rotation has a bit more gravitas, doesn’t it? Yes, we’ll make it a knob.
Said knob activates Electronic Stability Control, Anti-Slip Regulation, Electronic Differential Lock, and Anti-Lock Brakes, as Jalopnik notes in their article about their afternoon with the Touareg outdoors. Not just outdoors, though: the auto writers took their SUV somewhere they could ford it up to its eyeballs in brown, ice-covered water. The team sent it up inclines, down steep declines, over shale piles—whatever that is—and of course over plenty of loose dirt and snow.
It was important to the writers to know what effect all the technologies above have on actual driving, and to what extent they are limited by the vehicle’s predominantly urban engineering. We think this a good idea because Raleigh is close enough to get up to Virginia, or out west to the Appalachian Mountains. We get flash flood warnings at times, and you often won’t find sales literature describing real-world trials in adverse conditions. We heartily recommend Jalopnik’s write-up.
And of course, if you would like to test drive a Touareg for yourself, we would love to have you any time.