Volkswagen ready to take covers off the Tiguan SUV

German car giant Volkswagen will launch later today the Tiguan sports utility vehicle, an all-new product for the India market to take on the best selling Toyota Fortuner.

The five-seater premium SUV will be Volkswagen’s first all-new model in India in nearly a year. The company last year in June launched the Ameo compact sedan which is built on the Polo platform.

Besides the Fortuner the Tiguan will compete against the Ford Endeavour, Honda CRV, Hyundai Santa Fe, Ssangyong Rexton, the recently launched Isuzu MU-X and the to-be-launched Skoda Kodiaq, all of which are available in the price band of Rs 20-30 lakh.

This is second attempt by the German company at cracking the premium SUV segment. It had earlier launched and later phased out the Touareg SUV citing low volumes as the reason. The Touareg, though, was the bigger SUV and was twice as expensive as the Tiguan.

The Tiguan is powered by a 2 litre turbo-charged diesel engine that churns out peak power of 147 bhp and is mated to a 7 speed automatic gearbox. The SUV will be assembled in India which means that the company will be able to compete effectively against the local competitors.

The vehicle on the inside gets a large touch-screen display unit which will have Apple Car Play, Android Auto and Mirror Link. It will have a three-zone climate control, height adjustable front seats with heating, hill decent control, rain sensing wipers, automatic headlamps, LED headlamps and taillights, reverse camera, six airbags to name a few.