2008 Volkswagen Touareg v10 TDI

Brakes
Front: Power-assisted 13-inch vented disc/anti-lock braking system (ABS)/hydraulic brake assist (HBA)
Rear: Power-assisted 13-inch vented disc/anti-lock braking system (ABS)/hydraulic brake assist (HBA)

Tires & Wheels
Wheel Size: 19-inch alloy
Tire Size: 275/45 R19

Driving Impressions
Normally, I am not impressed by a car, truck, or SUV with gizmos and gadgets. I drive a $2,700 truck and it works just fine, thank you. So why do I like the $80,000 Touareg?

It has every gizmo and gadget you could ever imagine, as well as a few I'm sure I wouldn't have ever thought of. The backup cam with the grid is helpful, as are the lights in the side mirrors. You can raise it up when you go off-road, and lower it for the twisties. It has plenty of cargo space and gets more than 20 mpg, even at 80 mph. According to the dyno results, it has almost 380 hp at the crank.

The simple fact is that the Touareg does everything extremely well and gives you very few things to dislike about it-just as an $80,000 vehicle should. -Jason Sands

What's not to like about a diesel SUV with a twin-turbo V-10 engine and more torque than a 7.3L-powered Ford F-550? Not a whole lot, but I have to ask myself, "Is it twice as good as our $42,000 3.0L diesel Jeep Grand Cherokee?" I'm not sure that it is, but I still want one for my collection.

Think about it-20 years from now when we look back on what is sure to be known as the second muscle car generation (1993-2008), the V-10 VW Touareg will be one of the most highly sought after diesel vehicles on the collector car market. Its adjustable-height air suspension, low-range equipped transfer case, and selectable rear locker will no doubt have been legislated into extinction and gone the way of dual quad carburetors and mechanical injection.

Twenty years from now I'm sure I will have forgotten the odd engine vibration I felt through the floorboard when the transmission was in gear and my foot was on the brake. Twenty years from now my memory of all of the blind spots this high-beltlined SUV has will likely have faded away. Twenty years from now I won't recall that you had to inflate the spare tire (using the on-board air compressor) before you installed it on the Touareg. But twenty years from now I'm certain I will remember the V-10's power, and I suspect it will still be the most impressive diesel production vehicle sold in the U.S. -David Kennedy