VW seemed to think the VR6 package was best intended for fitting a V6 into the smallish engine bay of their transverse mount front drivers. They never put VR6s into longi cars, but for some odd reason they decided it would work well as the base model engine for the Touareg/Cayenne/Q7 SUV cousins.. a platform that not…

Yep! Such an oddball little engine. Too bad we didn’t get any VR5s in the U.S.. I do know a couple guys who have imported the engines to swap into other VWs state-side, though. Really, really neat.

There are legitimately some jobs that are near-impossible without one of these.

There often ends up being aftermarket solutions for that... but then you’d have to pull the transmission and take the transaxle apart and install the diff yourself... or pay someone $bignum to do it.

Of course most automakers by now also have clever ABS programming that will try to act as an electronic differential…

You’re right on some level, most people won’t care/notice so long as it does its job and doesn’t require that much attention maintenance-wise.

If employees are vaccinated (many companies have policies in place that you MUST be in order to continue working for them anyway) I can see this as being feasible.

Pretty fun as a unique off-roader that still feels really excellent on road deep into the triple digits.

I’m also going to come out and say this: the Touareg interior is nicer than the Cayenne from this time period. I’ve been working a good bit on electrical issues on the inside of my boss’ 2005 Cayenne S, and virtually every surface in that car feels cheaper than the Touaregs from the time. Surprising considering these…

I’ve seen a few V6 models with manuals, but this is the first V8 model.

This, right here.

Lowest output of a production W12 would be 450 hp. And realistically, about the same to what Aston Martin was also doing with a 6.0 V12 that was basically two Ford Duratec V6s welded together at the time in the early 2000s Vanquish. Both would eventually breach the 500 hp mark without boost as the aughts wore on.

The…

I’m not voting on this one. Price is rather high for what you get, but there also aren’t many in the U.S..

John Cadogan had a brilliant idea on this topic years ago:

That might work in some areas, but the EPA in the U.S. has required that vehicles equipped with these modern NOx reduction systems have two things: a sensor that can detect extremely diluted DEF in the tank and to also have a NOx sensor after the SCR catalyst so the computer can see exactly how much NOx is coming out…

I’ve been a pretty big Lewis fan since he was a rookie in 2007. But, even so, I can recognize that it’s not good for the sport to have an individual dominate for so long. The vast majority of fans just want to see a hard fought, close battle for the title and during races. And that’s exactly what we got.

I went through a phase in life where I didn’t have enough work and sat at home with little to do (although I also didn’t have the money to go and do rich people things—so there’s that), living in an area that is not where I grew up and thus had next to no nearby “close” friends to hang out with and do much.

Pretty amazing, especially for its time. Although it is worth noting that with two cars having an identical drag coefficient does not mean they are the same for as much ‘wind’ resistance they will encounter going down the road at speed. For that, you’d also need to know the frontal area combined with the drag…

To me, the nose reminds me a lot of the Alpine A110:

Well, being a long-time VW stan, I’m going to have to submit at least one.

150 is plenty fast for a 6000 lb SUV with a huge frontal area. lol