New Volkswagen Tayron seven-seat SUV leaked ahead of big reveal

Two images of the new Volkswagen Tayron seven-seat SUV have been leaked online, just 24 hours before the car was due to be unveiled. The pictures show the exterior of the car in full, including its long body and striking purple paintwork.

Volkswagen has already announced that its new seven-seat SUV will be unveiled on 9 October, serving as the replacement for the VW Tiguan Allspace. It’ll also rival other large SUVs such as the Kia Sorento and award-winning Skoda Kodiaq.

The Tayron name will be unfamiliar to UK motorists, but Volkswagen has been using it in the Chinese market for several years now. As well as confirming the nameplate’s introduction to UK showrooms, the company also provided a glimpse of the rear end’s full-width light bar and illuminated VW badge in a recent teaser image.

We can see this distinctive feature in these new leaked pictures, as well as the car’s long rear overhang – which will make room for those additional seats. We don’t yet know how spacious that third row will be; the Tiguan Allspace wasn’t the roomiest of seven-seat SUVs.

Apart from the longer body and a tapering window line, there are a few features that mark out the new Tayron. The rear bumper detailing is all but identical to the Tiguan’s, but the badge has been moved from the base of the tailgate to above the numberplate. The lights are ever so slightly different, too, with an X-like motif similar to that found on the latest ID.3.

To the front, the Tayron gets some unique detailing around the bumper, and the grille features a new design. But the lights and their signature are indistinguishable from the smaller Tiguan’s. The only other point of note is the fuel-filler cap on the front wing, suggesting the Tayron will be offered as a plug-in hybrid – unlike its Allspace predecessor.

Previously, images shared by China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) showed the car in Chinese spec, but it now transpires that the European car will be longer. We expect the Tayron to measure more than 4.7 metres from nose to tail, with a wheelbase of nearly 2.8 metres; by comparison, tthe standard Mk3 Tiguan is 4,539mm long and has a wheelbase of 2,676mm.

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We’ve not had a look inside the Tayron yet, but we expect the interior will be identical to the Tiguan’s. This features a 10.25-inch digital driver’s display and 12.9-inch central touchscreen as standard, but an even larger 15-inch screen should be available as an optional extra. We expect there will be some physical buttons dotted around the cabin, as well as VW’s usual touch-sensitive climate controls that are now backlit, unlike in earlier cars.

The Tayron will be based on the same MQB Evo platform as the Tiguan and the Skoda Kodiaq. That means buyers should get a choice of diesel, mild-hybrid petrol and pure-petrol engines, plus the aforementioned plug-in hybrid powertrain that, in the Skoda, offers a pure-electric range of up to 75 miles.

That EV range and subsequently low CO2 emissions offered by the plug-in Kodiaq allow it to fall into the very low five per cent Benefit-in-Kind (BiK) tax bracket for company-car drivers, and the same should be true for the Tayron PHEV. For context, electric cars currently attract a two per cent BiK rating.

We expect prices for the Volkswagen Tayron will start from between £38,000 and £40,000, given that the base price for the Tiguan is currently £34,075, while the Kodiaq starts from £36,645.

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