Volkswagen Australia has confirmed that a new variant of their Tiguan will be arriving on local shores and is available to order now. It’s called the Adventure, a special edition of the midsize SUV that adds some extra off road cred to the proceedings.
With these attempts at a more ruggedised variant, often automakers are often caught merely pandering to a certain image of a pseudo active lifestyle instead of actually bringing new features and changes that would actually improve its capability when the going does get rougher.
Fortunately, the newly released second-generation Tiguan, with its larger size and more angular design, does inherently look like a beefier object that the version it replaces. However, certain improvements seem to be counterproductive to its name.
It’s based on the Tiguan Comfortline, but Volkswagen have added unique bumpers front and back, the former in particular offers a chunkier skid plate and would afford it an increased approach angle (up to 24-degrees). In addition, there’s extra underbody protection, thicker cladding around the Tiguan Adventure’s lower perimeter, and we’re sure you’ve already noticed those standard roof rails.
That said, and given it costs $2,500 over the model it’s based on, it also serves as a better specified Tiguan Comfortline in the city too, featuring larger 18-inch alloys, standard LED headlights, an automatic tailgate, keyless entry, and power folding mirrors.
Inside, it’s pretty much the standard 2nd-gen Tiguan fare, the Adventure does have some swish new electrically adjustable and heated ErgoActive front seats that offer electric lumbar support and even have a massage function - essential while out in the bush from what we hear. Instead of normal cloth or leather upholstery, these are given a unique micro fleece trim.
The deep blue metallic colours you see here is rather fetching, but will add an extra $700 over the other shades, including a Deep Black pearlescent (also $700), Indium Grey metallic, Tungsten Silver metallic, and Pure White.
Like the normal Tiguan Comfortline, there are options to be chosen to expand the feature set. For $2,000 more, the Driver Assistance Package can be selected, adding adaptive cruise control, a 360-degree camera, lane keep assist, automatic parking, and VW’s Active Info Display which replaces the analogue instrument cluster with a 12.3-inch high resolution screen. Also for $2,000, the panoramic sunroof can be specified. Presumably to give occupants a better underside view of those roof rails.
The Volkswagen Tiguan Adventure is available to order now, and can be had with either a petrol (132kW) TSI or (110kW) TDI diesel four-cylinder engine, sending drive to all four corners via a 7-speed dual-clutch DSG transmission.
For more on Volkswagen cars, check out our Showroom.
