Driven to Extinction: Volkswagen Touareg ditched in favour of the Tayron

The Volkswagen Touareg is facing the axe, with production due to cease early next year. The luxury SUV was introduced in 2002 alongside the Porsche Cayenne, the two models sharing a platform. While the Cayenne transformed Porsche’s volumes, the Touareg never created quite such a cultural shift within Volkswagen.

Given that luxury SUVs ought already be quite amply catered for, and would have been a better fit for the Audi brand within the group, it might seem odd that Volkswagen wanted to push upmarket in this way, but in the late 1990s, Ferdinand Piech’s manic brand extensions were in full flight and all the tenets of traditional brand management seemed to have been cast to the winds in Wolfsburg.

In some market sectors, Volkswagen, Audi, Skoda and SEAT were all cannibalising sales from each other in an internecine survival of the fittest, so perhaps it wasn’t entirely unexpected that Volkswagen would launch the Phaeton sedan in 2001 to compete directly with the Audi A8 and then the Touareg SUV the following year, to compete with the Cayenne.

1

It was the third model to be spun off the Slovakian-built VW Group PL71 chassis, the Audi Q7, which would appear comparatively late in the piece in 2005. Both were integral to Piech’s vision of increased profitability per vehicle for Volkswagen, following a strategy he’d successfully executed at Audi. While the Phaeton was a sales flop, the Touareg performed reasonably across three generations. The ‘7L’ model ran from 2002-2010, the ‘7P’ from 2010 to 2018 and the ‘CR’ iteration took up the mantle through to 2026.

The first generation was undoubtedly the most radical, featuring both a 6.0-litre W12 petrol option and a 5.0-litre V10 diesel.

The Wheels first drive of the original sagely predicted that “Touareg top-end models may well struggle against more prestigiously badged competitors”. In other words, we didn’t buy into Volkswagen’s upmarket aspirations then and nothing has changed our view on the interim. While badge equity is not an immutable concept, there’s a lot to be said for focusing on what you’re best at.

Even in 2015, the Touareg’s most successful year of Australian sales, it achieved a nine per cent share in its sector, outshone by the likes of the Audi Q7 (12.1 per cent), BMW X5 (17.4 per cent), Land Rover Discovery (10.3 per cent) Range Rover Sport (12.9 per cent) and Mercedes-Benz GLE (11.4 per cent). Half-year sales for 2025 stood at 472 units.

1

It’s not all bad news. In switching attention from the Toureg to the more practical and affordable seven-seater Tayron model, Volkswagen is finally adopting a measure of pragmatism that was missing from all those years of hubris. With prices that start at around $53k versus the Touareg’s $89k, the Tayron looks a smarter bet for success. If it doesn’t at least double the Touareg’s best ever year of sales in Australia during its first full year on the market, we’d be very surprised. Here’s to sticking to the knitting.

Touareg sales in Australia

The article originally appeared in the December 2025 issue of Wheels. Subscribe here and gain access to 12 issues for $109 plus online access to every Wheels issue since 1953.