When is a Tiguan not a Tiguan? When it’s actually a Tayron. While VW in Europe has just unveiled the third generation of the two-row Tiguan SUV, the North American arm of the firm is getting ready to pull the covers off an entirely different machine that will still bear the Tiguan name, but is based on a three-row SUV sold in Asia as the Tayron. Spy photographers caught America’s 2025 Tiguan testing in Sweden recently riding on small wheels and looking fairly frumpy in a mid-level trim. But now they’ve spied the sporty R-Line version being put through its paces at the Nurburgring in Germany, and while the R bits haven’t exactly transformed it into style icon, they definitely add to its appeal.
This isn’t a full R model but the R-Line trim pushes most of the
same aesthetic buttons. Most obviously it brings two huge air intakes sited at
either end of the wide mouth, each equipped with a fat pair of horizontal slats
and connected by what looks like a section of security fence that VW’s
engineers have glued in and painted black.
Maybe that grille will make more sense when we get to see
the Tiguan without the camo wrap that’s mounted above it on this prototype and
masquerading as a grille. When it’s peeled off later this year for the official
launch we’ll see a narrow channel between the LED lights containing a light
bar, just like the one on the Mk8 Golf. There’s more fakery going on at the
back of this test car in the form of a set of tailpipes made out of stickers,
while yet more camouflage attempts to disguise the LED rear light clusters and
the illuminated bar that connects them. But there’s nothing fake about the
sports seats that we can just about make out in a couple of the images.
We hear that America’s 2025 Tiguan will
get a 2.0-liter turbocharged, mild-hybrid engine and seven-speed dual-clutch
transmission, plus a choice of front- and all-wheel drive power options. But
potentially of more interest given the rising popularity of full hybrids in the
U.S. is a rumor that says VW will bring a PHEV option to the continent for the
first time.
If the Tigaun-Tayron story sounds like
it’s now making sense, allow us to add a bit of confusion back into the mix.
Because Europe is also expected to take the same car as a replacement for the
old long-wheelbase Tiguan Allspace. And it’s doing that despite a long wheelbase version of the new European
Tiguan having just been revealed in China.
