Volkswagen wants a piece of the booming luxury SUV market and nothing else matters.
It doesn't matter that VW isn't really a luxury brand, or that its Touareg SUV is significantly more expensive than some competitors.
Selling overstuffed trucks full of stitched leather, cooled seats and panoramic roofs is profitable, one would imagine. It's our fault, of course. We buy them. Because … why?
Sales of what the industry calls "premium SUVs" are up, says VW spokesman Thomas Tetzlaff, and the company sees this as an opportunity for growth.
This is the Golden Age of Sport Utility. Again.
All it took was six months of relatively cheap gas, plus a crash in the Russian car market which, for Volkswagen, led to a suddenly abundant supply of Touareg SUVs for Canada.
Which brings us to Spain. Somewhere not-too-deep in the Sierra Nevada mountains, marching a convoy of silver Touaregs – pronounced twah-reg – up the top of the hill and marching them down again. We've got walkie-talkies, for car-to-car banter and harassment. The sun is shining. Snow-capped peaks obscure the horizon. It's hot, nearly 30C. There are three TV crews, and a handful or writers, all led by Peter and Heike – professionals who run these off-roading excursions for Volkswagen.
(They'll take you and your pals on an adventure too, through Spain or Iceland or Morocco.)
Our twah-reg lists hard to port as two wheels fall into a deep rut. Ha! Driver-to-co-pilot: select off-road mode, suspension to comfort, ride height to mode 4. The cabin feels like a command centre. Turn one knob, scroll a dial behind the gear-lever, turn a second knob. Suddenly, the SUV rises up beneath us to clear the rut. This is what it must feel like to be in a tank: invincible, unstoppable – safe.
The 3.0-litre turbo-diesel V-6 has 406 lb-ft of torque and all-wheel drive. It's a workhorse of an engine.
Peter stops us by the side of a dry riverbed so we can see how the trucks climb an impossibly steep hill. Of course, it's not impossibly steep. Not for this SUV.
It's like watching a horror movie. The ending is predictable but that only makes the journey marginally less terrifying.
There's nothing but blue sky and wispy clouds out the front window, but the VW rolls on, individual wheels slipping for a second before again finding grip.
On the way down, hanging off the seat belt, you must take your foot off the brake. When you work up the courage to put faith in the system, the car slows itself automatically using the hill-descent-control feature. The mammoth SUV crawls down the hill at a steady walking pace.
A tank is actually a bad analogy for what this feels like. Tanks aren't luxurious like this. Premium SUVs are more like Air Force One from the seminal action thriller of the same name. You know the one: Harrison Ford versus a plane full of ruthless, nameless terrorists.
Like Harrison's presidential jumbo jet, premium sport utes are as spacious and luxurious as they are safe and secure. There's probably an escape pod in here somewhere, if only I could find the correct knob.
The size and comforts of luxury SUVs make us feel protected in a way that subcompacts or even luxury sedans can't do; they don't feel big enough, nor commanding or capable enough. SUVs are a shield against the outside world, against an uncertain future and a quiet feeling of vulnerability. They are a safe space where you're powerful and in charge. Without you, it's nothing. At the wheel, here, at least you can control what happens. You turn the knobs and tell it what to do. It's a physical, tangible thing – screw the cloud, what even is that? – a signifier of status that also happens to be practical.
In the age of uncertainty, the SUV is king of all contingencies. That's why we buy them.
Or it could just be that the SUV's appeal is utilitarian. It will take you up the Sierra Nevada and back down again, if that's what you need.
Either way, with cheap gas and abundant inventory: heck yeah, the large SUV is a growth opportunity for Volkswagen, and any other auto maker that can pump out Air Force One on wheels.
The writer was a guest of the auto maker. Content was not subject to approval.
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