Scheduled to arrive in 2018 at the earliest, the yet-unnamed off-roader will partially fill the void that will be left by the current Tiguan when a larger and more upscale second-generation model is introduced late next year. The SUV will be more capable than the average compact soft-roader but it will not be a hardcore off-roader, either.
Industry rumors indicate the SUV will share the bulk of its mechanical components with the eighth-generation Golf that engineers are in the early stages of developing. The next generation of Volkswagen’s 4Motion all-wheel drive system will be available at an extra cost on most trim levels, and a gasoline-electric plug-in hybrid drivetrain could round out the lineup later in the production run.
If the rumor turns out to be true, expect to hear more about the Golf-badged SUV over the coming years.
Déjà Vu
The idea of a Golf on stilts isn’t new in Wolfsburg. Volkswagen traveled to the 1989 edition of the Frankfurt Motor Show to introduce a concept car called Golf Montana. Essentially a second-gen Golf with a steel ladder frame and a raised suspension, the concept was surprisingly given the green light for production and after generating an overwhelmingly positive response from show-goers. Over 7,000 examples of the Golf Country (pictured) were produced by Steyr-Puch in Austria until the model was axed in 1991.
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