I drove the new Volkswagen Tayron – it's a seven-seat SUV with posh touches, clever tech and loads of space

03/12/2025 04:41 PM

THIS always happens. You work hard to buy a nice motor. Meet someone. Play naked Twister. Then boom. Your pride and joy has to go. Replaced by a sensible family SUV.

Take my nephew Alex. He bought a Volkswagen Polo GTI last year. He was very pleased with it.

But now his missus is pregnant with TRIPLETS.

So the GTI's just been traded in for a Tiguan.

Now I'm thinking he'd be better off with one of these.

Tayron is a versatile seven-seater that sits between Tiguan and the lush Touareg.

It's easy to say it replaces the old Tiguan Allspace. But it's more sophisticated than that – and a teeny bit longer.

Right, let's start inside because it's a nice place to be.

Massaging ventilated seats. Acoustic glass. Big glass roof. It's all about wellness nowadays, innit?

Charging trays for two smartphones. Oversized icons on the slick 15in touchscreen. Backlit controls. They listened. Sun blinds for the kiddlywinks in the back. Three-zone air con. Comfy ride. Everyone's happy.

With all seven seats up, there's still a decent 345 litres of boot space for jumbo packs of Huggies. Flip down the rear seats and you've got 850 litres to swallow a triple buggy and more.

Flip down the middle seats and you've got a van.

The standard Tayron Life is powered by VW's bread-and-butter 1.5-litre 150hp petrol turbo with a seven-speed auto. That's £39,850.

There's a clean 2-litre diesel that nudges 50mpg, a plug-in hybrid petrol that'll do up to 76 miles in EV mode, and a 2-litre 265hp petrol with 4MOTION all-wheel drive that's even more sure-footed and best for towing.

Take your pick.

I'm not going to say Tayron is a looker. Because it's not. It's an SUV-cum-MPV. But it's the first motor to have illuminated VW badges front and back which is pretty cool at night.

Posher versions get HD matrix headlights from Touareg.

One last thing. Tayron, pronounced "Tie-Ron", is Volkswagen's sixth SUV beginning with the letter "T".

There's Taigo, T-Cross, T-Roc, Tiguan, Touareg and now Tayron.

Like Alex, they need to tie a knot in it.

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