Bentley Bentayga vs Volkswagen Touareg

What's the difference?

Yes, you can drive your Bentley and keep your family. It's called compromise, or the Bentayga, Bentley's SUV.

The Bentayga my family has been living with is the Azure grade which promises to be even more comfortable and pleasant than the rest of the range.

Comfort is important and we'll cover the Bentayga's lavish details in time, but our mission first and foremost is to find out if the Bentayga makes a good family SUV.

It’s big, it’s fast, it’s luxurious, Volkswagen’s Touareg has always been a stand-out large SUV.

This one, the full-fat R is the latest take on the halo Volkswagen model. It has big shoes to fill.

See, top-spec Touaregs in the past are hardly rivals to the Toyota LandCruisers and Hyundai Palisades of this world. They’re a different breed, with the first-generation Touareg powered by a variety of engines up to a 5.0-litre turbo-diesel V10, and the second-gen version packing petrol and diesel V8s in its upper levels.

They were the ultimate sleeper family SUV, ridiculous engines with rich VW Group lineage in a seemingly mainstream family-friendly package.

But this third-generation version can’t quite replicate the over-engined craziness of its predecessors. It has to think outside the box as emissions regulations crack down the world over.

This Touareg R is a plug-in hybrid. A performance-focused one at that. Can it hope to replicate the unhinged nature of its forebears and find an appropriate place atop the hierarchy of Volkswagen’s R models? Let’s find out.