FIRST RIDE New Touareg shows promise

Fresh looks and uprated kit for large SUV's mid-life update; Facelifted model is due to arrive in showrooms later this year

- Dennis Petermann

THE new Volkswagen Touareg is being put on ice - literally. In preparation for a refresh that will see it through the second half of its lifespan, the brand's flagship SUV has come to Arvidsjaur in northern Sweden to undergo cold-weather testing, and we've joined the development team to get an early taste of what we can expect.

The Touareg is more than two decades old as a model, and the current version was introduced in 2018 - so this is a relatively late facelift, by car industry standards. And on initial inspection it looks like a fairly mild tweak; there are presumably fresh bumpers beneath the complex camo wrap, but as far as the VW's engines are concerned, for example, things do appear to have been frozen pretty solid.