The Trip

Majestic flatlands, arrow straight roads, vibrant skies and tranquillity of the winter sun led us to the “Golden City” of India, Jaisalmer. Now, every road trip brings about its own brew of fun and adventure. For us folks here at CarWale, driving across Rajasthan is always a treat because this Rajput state is home to the country’s best driving roads. The only catch here is that we are all from Mumbai and getting out of it and towards the Gujarat border always dampens one’s mood with constant bottlenecks and road works, to say the least. Thankfully, it’s the break of dawn, the traffic is sparse and we are cocooned against the morning cold in the spacious and well damped cabin of the Volkswagen Tiguan AllSpace.

It’s still fairly dark as we hit NH48 leading to Surat and seeing the sprawling wide roads I stepped on the loud pedal and of course, the Tiguan AllSpace wasn’t a slouch. However, the sad part about this particular national highway is that up until you are near the Gujarat Rajasthan border, the scenery is quite mundane. Our destination for the day is Udaipur and it’s meant to be quiet and pleasant but first, a road trip essential - food and snacks to take along! We pulled over at a restaurant-slash-bakery to feast on a sumptuous Irani breakfast. I settled for a heart-warming plate of chicken keema, some amazing eedu, a warm cup of chai and we hit the road.

And how the Tiguan has grown in this AllSpace guise: both dimensionally and intellectually. It’s a longer car than the Tiguan and it seats seven instead of five. In fact, the AllSpace is remarkably larger, with a wheelbase that’s 110mm longer than the Tiguan and the whole thing is 215mm longer in length. The best part though is that you get a storage capacity ranging from 340 litres to 1,274 litres, depending on how many seats you fold down. So it’s a monster when it comes to practicality. And because it’s a full import and there’s just one fully loaded trim on offer, it’s also a proper tech powerhouse. You get full LED headlights, a fully digital instrument console, a three zone climate control, electric tailgate and a lovely sounding eight speaker music system. We particularly enjoyed the latter as we chugged along effortlessly towards Udaipur.

We reached Udaipur late in the night at around dinner time with hardly any exhaustion. Understandably it was too late to explore the ‘City of Lakes’, as it’s called. The next morning as we set off for Jaisalmer we could, even in the wee hours, see that it’s an old city that’s currently in the midst of this makeover into a modern town yet preserve and embrace its ancient hills and spectacular lakes. Steering the Tiguan AllSpace through some of Udaipur’s narrow by lanes was a little tricky considering the road conditions. In fact, navigation through the urban stretch required a bit more of brain capacity for us Mumbai people. It’s the same perceptive respite that’s earmarked for any crowded city but in relatively smaller towns of Rajasthan it’s the herds of stray cows and goats wandering freely on the roads that you have to be most careful of. They will just go whichever direction they want, whenever they fancy. It’s just unpleasant.

What’s absolutely pleasant though are most of the highways in Rajasthan. I must say they added a lot to the fun that we had driving the Tiguan AllSpace. Add to that the changing landscapes and the VW’s ability to eat up kilometres with ease and we didn’t even realise we covered nearly 500 kilometers by afternoon and were in Jaisalmer. We took a couple of meal stops along the way, not to mention had some amazing poha, parathas and chai before hitting our overnight spot. One particular thing we discovered is that Rajasthan serves surprisingly good poha! Unsurprisingly, the surrounding regions of Jaisalmer offered incredible terrain. We saw flatlands, rocky plains, incredibly well-paved roads and sand dunes. With such topographical diversity, it was the perfect place for the roadtesters within us to test the Tiguan AllSpace for its high speed manners and off-road prowess. On the road, how VW has managed to hide the Tiguan’s nearly 1,800kg kerb weight can only be described as witchcraft. It’s all thanks to VW’s brilliant MQB platform that cleverly disguises all that weight and yes, you are aware of the forces the chassis is fighting but ultimately it all works. Another factor that added to the ease of our long distance drive was the excellent NVH levels – it is one of the quietest petrol SUVs under Rs 50 lakh and there’s no doubting that.

Feeling all relaxed we headed towards Sam desert which is 40 kilometres west of Jaisalmer. A popular spot for sunset scenes and desert safaris, Sam desert is not exactly a remote location but it’s an evocative place nonetheless. If you can reach early on in the morning when there aren’t many tourists around you will get some incredible views of the dunes and the sun rising above the horizon. Similarly, Sam is the place to be at for sunset visuals although it’s quite challenging simply because of the pace at which the sun goes down. After getting on top of one of the dunes, I paused and stood still to take in the incredible landscape. Everything including the Tiguan parked on the side of this single lane road looked tiny and I couldn’t believe the natural splendour of Rajasthan that bordered on sublime. The overwhelming palette of red, orange and yellow across the skies as the sun went down was a sight to behold.

The final leg of our road trip took us back to the border from Jaisalmer and as we crossed Fateh Garh and then Barmer, it was clear that we were driving on one of India’s smoothest and sparsely occupied highways. Almost the entire stretch right till the border is incredibly well paved and it’s surprisingly flowy. It was during this leg that the Tiguan AllSpace’s ride and handling setup really came into its own. Yes, it rides a little firmly at low speeds due to which the ruts and sharp-edged potholes can be felt into the cabin but it’s never uncomfortable. Moreover, vertical movements are well-contained and on the highways the AllSpace feels sure-footed at all times.

Solid stability aside, the thrust that the 2-litre TSI engine offers is also impressive. The power is addictive as well since the engine winds up with zero harshness. It’s very quiet too, inside and out. All in all, the real trait of the Tiguan AllSpace is its ability to rise up to any occasion. It’s one of those ‘does it all’ kind of vehicles that doesn’t feel out of place be it the lobby of one of the most expensive hotels in town or in the middle of a desert. It will do the job just fine. That has always been the case with the Tiguan right from the standard, five seater model that VW India launched in 2017. Since then, it has always been the modest all-rounder choice for many buyers and now with the stringent BS6 regulations in place, VW India has launched the facelifted Tiguan with a cleaner 2-litre TSI petrol engine and even though it’s no longer available in the seven-seater All-Space guise it’s still every bit the all-purpose SUV that it has always been.