We bought a 2004 Volkswagen Touareg several weeks ago. It came from Illinois via Florida through an online auction site called Bring A Trailer. On any given day, one can bid on almost anything car-wise, from a restored 1957 Mercedes-Benz 220S coupe to a hot-rodded 1980 Toyota Land Cruiser FJ40 to a 1972 McLaren M8FP racecar.

Against all appearances, our Touareg is a real offroad 4X4 with high ground clearance and a transfer case with a low range, so we hope it will solve the two problems we had taking our Hyundai Tucson on steep rocky trails. So, while we do expect the Touareg will take us places the Hyundai couldn’t, we do not expect it to be a very good day-to-day car.

I feel guilty badmouthing the Hyundai, it wasn’t particularly exciting, but it did everything it was designed to do. It has been flawless for a hundred thousand miles (except, strangely, one backdoor will not open). It is the most relievable car I’ve ever owned. The only experience I’ve had with Volkswagens is Michele’s GTI, and that was one of the most tossable, delightful, and just plain funest cars I’ve ever driven, although it wasn’t particularly reliable.

Still, the GTI was light and lithe, and the Touareg is the opposite; it feels heavy, and solid, like it was carved out of a solid block of unobtainium. The Touareg, along with the Phaeton luxury sedan, was part of Ferdinand Piëch’s, Porsche’s grandson and head of the Volkswagen group, plan to expand the Volkswagen company upscale to compete with Mercedes and BMW. This was partially in reaction to both BMW and Mercedes expanding down into Volkswagen’s traditional market with the Mercedes A-Class and the BMW 3 Series. Both the Touareg and the Phaeton were designed to be way better than the cars they competed against to compensate for Volkswagen’s reputation as an inexpensive car builder.

Like Range Rover in the late 80s, Volkswagen started with a very solid offroad chassis, then luxed it by adding every bell and whistle known to man in 2000. Our car/truck/SUV – it does look more like a car than a truck – has standard upscale goodies like leather upholstery, woolen carpeting, and a sunroof. It also has problematic electric luxury items – like six-way power front seats with four-way power lumbar support and a power-adjustable steering wheel – that, Like the Range Rover, may become a problem after miles of dusty washboard backroads. BTW, the Touareg even has an airconditioned glove box.

For its first shakedown drive, we drove the Touareg to the Owens Valley, where we drove around in the Alabama Hills before we took it 12.6 miles and 5,000 vertical feet up a dirt road to the Cerro Gordo mine. The Touareg handled all of it effortlessly.

The Touareg seems to be more of a Frau Gruber than a Diane Kruger; it feels sturdy and unstoppable. Still, it is nowhere as good ergonomically as the Hyundai. Part of that is age, the Hyundai is fourteen years younger, but part of it is German engineers thinking they know what is needed better than the future users. The Hyundai has a digital panel that shows the projected range with the current fuel level, while the Touareg has an unneeded amp gage – with numbers – that is unreadable in most light conditions and is the same size as the small, also usually unreadable, fuel gage. The cup holders in the Touareg are two high to put a water bottle in without constantly elbowing it, and on and on.

The road that we had hoped to test the Touareg on, the Lemoigne Mine Road, was closed because of a washout, and the Hunter Mountain Road was snowed in, so we didn’t give the Touareg a real test, but, so far, it seems like it will be up to the task. BTW, the view of the formally dry Owens Lake from Cerra Gordo Road is terrific. The locals say it is the first time one can see the reflection of the Sierras in the lake since 1915, when LA Water and Power started sucking the aquifer dry.

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