Touareg Will Drive Across Eurasia to Beijing Debut

On March 23 Volkswagen will unveil the brand new Touareg in Beijing, on the occasion of that city’s auto show.

Normally that would mean shipping the car to its location so that it can arrive all clean and shiny to the auto show floor so that the world’s media can take pictures of it. But the Touareg isn’t some show car, it’s a go anywhere, do anything, SUV.

So VW’s going to drive it there.

The journey started in Slovakia, where the Touareg is made, at the beginning of the month and will hit Poland, Austria, Russia, the Mongolian Plains, and eventually Beijing just in time for the Auto Show. That’s a journey of more than 16,000 kilometers (nearly 10,000 miles) through 11 countries (it’s not going as the crow flies).

Last we checked, a Touareg holds the world record for speed crossing the Eurasian continent in just 6 days, 9 hours, and 38 minutes, so this much slower trip in a much newer Touareg should be a doddle.

Sitting on the MLB platform, the new Touareg, like the old, will be positioned as a two-row luxury SUV, though it will still be on the low end of the spectrum with the Q7, Bentayga, Cayenne, Urus range, which all share the same architecture.

China is expected to be the Touareg’s key market—hence the reveal in Beijing—so it will likely get a plug-in hybrid drivetrain.

Don’t expect to see a Touareg driving down your street, though, since it won’t be headed stateside.

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