Volkswagen Touareg pulls much more than its weight

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Thursday, 23 November 2006 23:11

Your IT - Entertainment

Ever wished your car handled better when pulling a trailer or caravan? Then the Touareg may be the car you want – it just towed a Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet in London. That’s great, but what we really want is an electric car - that flies!

Volkswagen’s “Touareg V10 TDI” had no trouble towing a 155 tonne Boeing 747-200 at the Dunsfold Aerodrome south west of London.

So successful was the test, with the Touareg check afterwards and proclaimed free of damage, that the driver asked if there was anything heavier to tow.

While this is certainly impressive and will no doubt cause competitors to launch stunts of their own to prove how powerful their models are, it would be good to see different advances in car technology rapidly come to the fore.

The flying car, seen in so many science fiction movies, is something that has existed for the past few years, but we still don’t see them flying around in everyday use.

And the electric motor is only very slowly becoming more widely used, whether to upgrade existing cars, used in petrol/electic hybrid systems and in Tesla Motors own electric roadster that delivers true sports car performance without burning a drop of fuel whatsoever.

Congratulations to Volkswagen for producing such a powerful car that so easily handles such an incredible feat of towing. But I’m looking forward to real advancements in car technology that have much more truly practical uses and capabilities for us all.