With new Touareg, VW one-ups the past

It is never easy being the poor relation, especially when it seems you’re always being kicked in the teeth by superior and unbeatable forces. When you’re always regarded as second-class or completely downtrodden in some way or another, it is difficult to emerge from the stigma and establish yourself as a genuine and worthwhile being in your own right.

So it was with the Volkswagen Touareg — a big SUV with credible credentials but overshadowed and overwhelmed by its close relatives, the Porsche Cayenne and the Audi Q7. It might be the case that both Audi and Porsche are owned by Volkswagen, but that does not mean any of these company’s products actually stack up against each other.

On the one hand all Porsche models are gilded with automotive gold leaf and thus have a cachet all of their own, while Audi don’t do too badly on the desirability front either; on the other, all Volkswagen models are, by comparison, of the sackcloth and ashes variety.