VW enters new segments with the Touareg and Phaeton - International Trends - Brief Article

Automotive Industries, June, 2002 by Andrea Wielgat

By the end of the year Volkswagen AG will launch its initial entries into the sport/utility vehicle and luxury sedan segments.

The Phaeton luxury sedan hit markets this spring. The vehicle is offered with a 3.2L, 241 hp V-6 or 6L 420 hp W-12 engine. Later this fall a V-10 TDI will be introduced in dealerships in Europe. The W-12 and V-10 will have VW's 4Motion four-wheel-drive system while the V-6 will have front-wheel-drive.

Starting this fall the Touareg SUV will be available with a five-, six-, eight-, or 10-cylinder engine. The company is also considering eventually offering the vehicle with its W-12 engine.

Touareg, a native tribe from the Sahara, was developed with Porsche AG and has permanent four-wheel-drive.

For those questioning the names of the vehicles, Frank Maguire, vice president of sales and marketing for Volkswagen in North America admits they are out of the ordinary but along the line of other VW names.

"Think of the names of all our products now. They're all quirky-Passat, Jetta," he says. "They are names that just don't seem to lit for anybody except Volkswagen. Now we've got Phaeton and Touareg."