Volkswagen Touareg review

Where the old car felt like a jacked-up Golf from the inside, the new car is properly premium and a massive improvement. That’s thanks to the ‘fully digitised Innovision Cockpit’, or as you and I would call it, two enormous screens stitched together to look like one big one. Obviously expensive and time-consuming to programme, there’s a wonderful minimalism and notable absence of buttons inside, perfect to go along with the tidy lines outside.

It’s compatible with both Android Auto and Apple CarPlay and features a WiFi hotspot that allows up to eight devices to be connected at one time. The cabin ambience is massively improved, especially if you opt for the double-glazing which puts the outside world on mute. However, if you go diving below the cabin's waistline, you can see that some of the materials are slightly plasticky, probably to pay for all the electronics and those two giant slabs of glass. 

There’s a whole host of potential tech onboard too including: ‘Night Vision’ to spot (and with any luck, avoid hitting) animals and people when it’s dark thanks to a thermal imaging camera, LED matrix headlights, Roadwork Lane Assist (it’ll manage your steering, braking and acceleration at up to 37mph), a hyperactive pedestrian presence, head-up display, trailer assist, park assist and 360-degree cameras.