Tour-egg" Tow-are-age" Aw, heck, it doesn’t matter anymore if Americans can’t pronounce the name of Volkswagen’s five-seat, luxurious Touareg SUV. (For the record, it’s “To-war-reg.”) It will no longer be sold in the United States, as the less expensive, roomier three-row Atlas (and, soon, a two-row Atlas model) are taking over VW’s large-SUV efforts here. The Touareg?VW lifted that name from a nomadic people of the African Sahara desert?will live on in Europe and China, where the all-new, third-generation model has just been introduced. 
Weird name notwithstanding, the weight keeping down the Touareg’s appeal and sales volume in the U.S. market has been its cost. This is an expensive SUV that, since its launch in 2003, has shared bones with the luxury-badged Audi Q7 and Porsche Cayenne. Mix in the costs associated with importing it to the States (in contrast, the Atlas is built in Tennessee), and it’s not hard to see why Americans never truly embraced it. The all-new model continues that rich tradition (pun intended), relying on the same MLB platform that underpins the latest Audi and Porsche versions and looking for all the world like an Audi that someone mistakenly branded as a VW.
Up front is a plunging wide-mouth grille with classy horizontal slats, while the sides and rear of the rig are defined by strong horizontal creases. We even see some Bentley Bentayga in the shoulders over the rear wheels, a ...