Car Style - The Volkswagen Touareg

The SUV: The Volkswagen Touareg

You may remember Volkswagen as the company building cars for the people. They never tried making much larger machines, much more powerful machines... until something like the Touareg comes along. I've seen a few Touaregs in the past. To quote a song by Lil' Jon, Volkswagen stepped their game up. Everything you love about Volkswagen... while seating lots of people and carrying lots of stuff. This is the second Volkswagen I'm discussing as part of my "Car Style" segment.



--- Car Style: The Volkswagen Touareg ---

Exterior.
Volkswagens are never cars that have extreme amounts of character and meanness. This one is no exception. Rather than boldness and aggression, the Touareg has simple, distinctive style. The headlight arrangements are mostly minimalistic, as well as the grill, proudly bearing the VW badge. The grill portion is outlined in chrome along with the grill below the maing grill. A simple pair of fog lights adorn the bottom portion of the front bumper. This bottom portion is pretty much blacked out except for the extra signal lights. Its front doesn't intimidate anyone. Instead, it's VW's quirky and cool style willing to say hello to you.

That quirky and cool image extends to the sides. Not very muscular on the sides, but certainly not vanilla. Big front mirrors show this SUV is for business. This is more the kind of machine that is more for being a cool car to take around town, get some groceries, take the kid(s) to an amusement park or a sporting event, etc. The side skirts are blacked out from the rest of the SUV.

The rear is flanked with big, bold tail lights. The rear is styled smoothly and packs some great style. The rear bumper has the same blacked-out portion as the side skirts and lower part of the front bumper.

Essentially, if you think of the Touareg as an elongated Golf jacked up off the ground and with 4WD, it probably isn't a bad comparison.



Interior.
So the outside isn't going to scare off any Chevy or Fords or Toyotas. What about the inside? Beautiful. The front steering wheel looks very cool. Big gauges up front help you make sure you keep an eye on the speedometer (unless you want to get pulled over for speeding). The tachometer has the redline set at just a little over 6500 rpm. The center console is beautiful with a GPS system and all your basic air conditioning functions. The whole dashboard is a mix of dark gray with some wood trim. It altogether is very inviting. Maybe not luxury car inviting, but it is a beautiful machine on the inside. There's even some iPod and iPhone support for this SUV. I do wish the seats look a bit more interesting, though. There is no third row seating. Fold up the back seats for even more cargo room.



Overall, the Touareg is a very cool machine. Its exterior will not scare anybody (unless you're talking about the Dakar Rally-winning Touaregs), but its interior will welcome you with open arms and an open heart. It is a very cool machine.


UPDATE: 3/27/2010
If you are looking for car parts for your car or the car I mentioned, I invite you to use either the Amazon Auto Part Finder widget on the side. Or click on the link at the end of this sentence, as it links you to Amazon Auto Part Finder. Please read "An Important Amazon Note" in the sidebar for more information on Amazon products. Thank you for reading!