Volkswagen Says Goodbye to the Touareg After 24 Years - Here’s Why

The Volkswagen Touareg hasn’t been sold in the United States since 2017, when the larger and less expensive Atlas supplanted it. Still, the brand has soldiered on throughout the globe, racking up some 1.2 million vehicles sold over three generations. However, that run is coming to an end, as Volkswagen is finally discontinuing the Touareg in 2026, with a special Final Edition available for ordering in March of next year, to bookend the nameplate.

It’s not hard to see why VW USA called it quits on the Touareg. The Final Edition model costs the equivalent of $87,500 overseas, as compared to $54,630 for a top-of-the-line Atlas SEL Premium R-Line. Still, you could say that the Touraeg walked so the Atlas could run (more than 70,000 of them sold in the U.S. last year). Besides which, the Touaregs we did get until 2017 came in some pretty interesting flavors.

Take the V-10 TDI version, with its slightly ludicrous 5.0-liter turbo-diesel engine good for more than 300 hp and 550 pound-feet of torque. Volkswagen was so proud of that vehicle that, in a famous stunt, it hooked one up to a Boeing 747 and towed the airplane down a runway.

Just the thing for family life if you have two kids, a goldendoodle, and an international airport. Volkswagen also entered a racing version of the Touareg in the Dakar Rally—winning three times in a row from 2009 forward—and drove a more sensible V-6 TDI-equipped second-generation model from Tierra del Fuego in Argentina straight through to Alaska in just under 12 days.

Besides this, the Touareg provided the underpinnings for luxury SUVs like the Bentley Bentayga and the Lamborghini Urus, the latter of which has become the bestselling Lambo of all time. While the third-generation chassis was never available in the U.S. market with a VW badge up front, it still sold in huge quantities here as an Audi or other luxury product.

And so, a farewell to a vehicle many North Americans pronounced the “Toe-rag,” as if they were referring to a particularly odious Cockney gangster. Twenty-three years after its debut, the effect of the VW Touareg still echoes throughout the car industry. That’s what happens when you come right out of the gate with 10 cylinders of diesel power.