IMPRESSIVE TAYRON

IT'S a VW model name that perhaps many motorists may never have heard of yet underneath it's all quite familiar with well proven mechanical hardware from well-known VW engineering components to give buyers the usual assurances.

- BY DAVID WARD

The name is Tayron (pronounced 'Tie-ron') which is in effect a straight replacement for the Tiguan Allspace seven-seater which should answer any queries for potential buyers, particularly those looking for seven seats as against the norm of five seats for an SUV.

Naturally much of the cabin interior and driver technology is identical to the SUV Tiguan and as usual VW are clever in offering a wide choice of engines from petrol and diesel to plugin electric power and also different trim levels - total line up involves 15 different variations.

Tested here is the 148bhp 1.5-litre e-turbocharged mild hybrid petrol engine with a 48-volt mild hybrid system and an excellent performing seven-speed automatic direct-shift gearbox all in Elegance trim.

The performance is impressive too accelerating from 0 to 62mph in 9.4 seconds and even with five adults and two young children on board in a 'full house' as it were it proved more than efficient keeping up with motorway speeds and was remarkably quiet too.

With the Elegance trim extras there's paddle wheels behind the steering wheel so the driver can switch to manual mode plus sport mode for extra power but in reality on test there seem to be no need to take that route - it easily coped with the extra load again thanks to the automatic gearbox performance.