KEY POINTS:
Volkswagen let readers of a European motoring magazine come up with the name Tiguan, the carmaker's new crossover all-wheel-drive model that goes on sale in New Zealand in March.
More than 350,000 readers in 10 countries chose Tiguan (pronounced Tee-gwan). It is said that Tiguan is a mix of tiger and iguana, two creatures known for their sharp eyesight.
The name Tiguan sat well with VW, which prides itself on its corporate vision.
The company also has a preference for naming its vehicles after natural phenomenon.
Passat is German for trade winds. Polo has something to do with Polar winds, just as Jetta has with the jet stream. Golf has more to do with the Gulf Stream than the game. Touareg is named after a nomadic tribe in the Sahara Desert.
At one point in the development of the Tiguan, VW was said to be considering the name Beduin, a variation of bedouin and a family link to the Touareg. Tiguan, if you like, is the Touareg's little brother.
Eos, the company's tin-top convertible, is named after a woman, the mythical Greek goddess of the dawn. The Romans called her Aurora. Her tears, so the story goes, are the morning dew.
VW reckons Tiguan will become the chariot of choice for mortal working mums, many of whom now drive bigger all-wheel-drives, mostly to and from school and supermarkets.
The carmaker is already talking about the vehicle becoming a best-seller. Across the ditch, VW Australia reckons it can sell 700 Tiguans a month. In New Zealand, the company will be more than happy with 300 sales a year. That number would make it VW's most popular model here.
The company will start pre-selling Tiguan before Christmas. It has already finalised the advertising campaign.
"We will do what we did with Eos - hit the ground running," said Volkswagen NZ general manager Dean Sheed.
Tiguan production for New Zealand will begin in January and the first of the vehicles will land in March. Sheed said he hasn't finalised prices with the factory but has settled on specification levels.
There will be two models - luxury on-road with a deeper front bumper, and off-road with a cutaway front that allows better approach and departure angles in the rough stuff.
Both are powered by a 2-litre turbodiesel engine delivering 103kW (140bhp) and 320Nm of torque and mated to a six-speed sequential gearbox driving all four wheels via VW's 4Motion system. Towing capacity is 2.2 tonnes.
A petrol variant, using a detuned 125kW version of the Golf GTi's 2-litre turbocharged unit, is expected to arrive here later in the year. Both diesel and petrol engines already meet the Euro-5 emissions standard, which doesn't come into effect until 2009.
The on-road model will almost certainly come with a full-length panoramic roof and all the fruit. Likely price is around $60,000.
The off-road version boasts features such as electronic hill-descent, which slows the vehicle to a crawl on dodgy downhill sections, and a special uphill start mode. It is likely to cost around $55,000.
The different front ends led to much debate at the recent launch of the Tiguan in and around Budapest, Hungary. Some motoring writers liked the deeper fascia of the on-road model. It gave Tiguan more of a presence, they said, the shallower front made it appear a tad chinless.
Others said the cutaway front of the off-road version made Tiguan look younger and sportier. The on-road model was for oldies, they said.
The design of the interior was nowhere near as polarising. The roomy cockpit is refined with simple and efficient instrumentation. Twin air-conditioning vents on either side of the centre console are a standout design feature.
There is plenty of leg and shoulder room, front and rear, and the seats are among the best in class, especially covered in a dark tobacco-stain leather.
The rear seats are slightly higher than the front two and the centre seatback section can be folded down and used as an armrest, drink holder or pass-through for skis.
The boot space has 470 litres of space, with five people on board. Fold down the 60:40 split rear seats and Tiguan can swallow around 1500 litres and a payload of 650kg.
Ride and handling is among the best in class, too - predictable and accurate. Up front is a MacPherson set-up mounted on a one-piece aluminium subframe. At the rear is a four-link arrangement that VW says was specially tuned for the 4Motion system.
At speed through a sealed and winding forest road, Tiguan remained commendably planted and showed little body roll. It was quiet and comfortable on motorways but the ride got a little lumpy on 18-inch wheels over secondary sealed surfaces.
It coped with an undemanding off-road track bordering the River Danube with ease, although the limited up-and-down wheel travel inherent in a crossover comp-romise will allow it to go only so far in the rough stuff. It remains a soft off-roader.
VW wants to eat into a market which has such competent offerings as the Toyota RAV4, Nissan X-Trail, Hyundai Santa Fe and Honda CR-V. This compact all-wheel-drive segment is a growth areas. The Tiguan will grab a serious share of it.
