Facelifted compact SUV’s new nostril works higher with the illuminated mild bar, VW says, and it’ll be rolled out to extra fashions this 12 months
1 hour in the past
- VW claims the brand new slender grille on the Taos offers it a extra fashionable look.
- First seen on the Mk8 Golf, the slimline grille is now added to the Jetta and Tiguan.
- Upcoming VW fashions, together with the US-spec Tiguan, may also characteristic this design replace.
The facelifted VW Taos made its debut this week, bringing extra tools, a gutsier powertrain lineup and, most notably, a smooth, slimline grille that provides the entire automobile a radically completely different look to the mannequin it replaces.
You would possibly even say that with a lot painted plastic coating the entrance finish, VW appears to be attempting to make its smallest American combustion EV seem like its electrical SUV, the ID.4. However VW says the actual purpose it ditched the large grille is to make the transverse mild bar stand out higher.
Associated: 2025 VW Taos Arrives With Sleeker Face And Extra Energy, Ditches DSG
“The designers wanted to discover a good solution to combine the sunshine bars… and beforehand on the Taos we simply built-in it into the grille bar,” a VW spokesperson advised us throughout a media briefing earlier this week.
“However what we heard [from customers] is that wasn’t very visible. Individuals weren’t actually seeing it when it wasn’t on.”
The revised Taos isn’t the primary VW to characteristic a slender grille opening. The Mk8 Golf that launched in 2020 launched the design characteristic to combustion vehicles, copying the look of the ID.3 EV. And since then, different VWs together with the brand new Jetta, ID.4 and ID.5, and European-spec Tiguan and Passat have joined the pattern.
And it feels like that pattern is simply going to develop stronger, as a result of the Clint Eastwood moody stare chimes with consumers.
“Up to now VW was actually recognized for 3 chrome bars, however we’re transferring away from that as a result of clients need extra fashionable designs,” the VW spokesperson defined. “And you will notice that are available in with all the brand new vehicles you’re going to see this 12 months.”
These vehicles embody the brand new Tiguan, which this time received’t be a stretched tackle Europe’s Tiguan, however a model of the Chinese language Tayron SUV dressed with Tiguan badges. And in an odd twist, Europe will promote that very same US Tiguan as a three-row addition to the fully completely different five-seat Tiguan mannequin launched earlier this 12 months.
The identical goes for the next-generation 2026 Atlas, which we showcased this week—courtesy of China’s MIIT, which couldn’t resist revealing images of the brand new home market model, offered because the Terramont Professional. However don’t fear, it’s anticipated to be a carbon copy of the North American Atlas, identical to the present Atlas and Terramont are principally twins separated by an ocean.
VW’s Design Rewind
This isn’t the primary time VW has moved away from extra conventional grille designs. Whereas its early Eighties fashions just like the Mk2 Golf, Jetta and Passat all got here too late to undertake the flush nostril ushered in by different automakers’ fashions just like the Ford Sierra and Taurus, the B3 Passat launched in Europe in 1988 (and 1990 in America) had a clean hood that appeared to increase proper all the way down to bumper stage with the assistance of a body-color plastic filler panel between the lights.
That remedy gave the B3 Passat an virtually air-cooled look, and with the brand new slim grilles, VW appears as soon as once more to be tipping a hat to its rear-engined previous.
