Volkswagen’s first proper off-roader, styled by Erwin Leo Himmel and built at the purpose-fitted Bratislava plant, launched in 2002 with genuine off-road hardware rarely offered on a vehicle this size: a low-range transfer case, a locking centre differential, and optional air suspension that could raise ground clearance to 300 mm.[1] It shared its platform, underneath very different bodywork, with the first Porsche Cayenne and the Audi Q7 that followed it. American reviewers gave it awards for being both the best luxury SUV and, in the same year, one of the least green cars sold. That was a tension the model never really resolved.
Three trims are recorded here: the mainstream 3.2 VR6 petrol, the 3.0 V6 TDI diesel most of Europe bought, and the 5.0 V10 TDI, at launch the most powerful diesel engine fitted to any production car. Every horsepower figure in the source is explicitly given in both PS and kW, so the conversions recorded here carry no reading ambiguity.