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Volkswagen wins with Passat Alltrack and Touareg Hybrid

Over 120,000 readers of Auto Bild Allrad cast ballots for their favourite all-wheel drive vehicles for this year. Two Volkswagen models were awarded the title 'All-wheel drive car of the year 2012': the Passat Alltrack and the Touareg Hybrid.

This evening in Frankfurt, Europe's bestselling automotive magazine for all-wheel drive vehicles announced this year's prize winners of its readers' poll. The new Passat Alltrack won in the category of 'All-wheel drive crossover', while the Touareg Hybrid took the coveted title of 'All-wheel drive car of the year 2012' in the class of 'All-wheel drive hybrid cars'.

The Passat Alltrack is a versatile, offroad-capable and very spacious version of the Passat. The model is also impressive off the beaten path thanks to the Offroad driving programme, which until now was reserved for SUVs like the Tiguan and Touareg, a sturdy underbody guard as well as offroad ramp and approach angles. Visually, the Passat Alltrack is a trailblazer as well with matte chrome window surrounds, door mirror housings and radiator grille. Its appearance is also enhanced by 'Valley' 17-inch alloy wheels, silver roof rails and 'Alltrack' signatures at the front and rear.

Ever since its market launch about two years ago, the Touareg Hybrid has been combining innovative technology with contemporary utility value. The Touareg Hybrid sets standards among petrol-powered SUVs with a combined fuel consumption of just 8.2 l/100 km. At the same time, the hybrid version of the Touareg is also an ideal towing vehicle with a trailer load of up to 3.5 metric tonnes.

The drive unit of the Touareg Hybrid consists of a supercharged V6 TSI with 245 kW / 333 PS, an 8-speed automatic gearbox specially tailored to hybrid and offroad use, and an E-motor (34.3 kW / 46 PS). In pure electric mode, the energy stored in the nickel-metal hydride battery (NiMH) is sufficient to drive the Touareg a distance of about two kilometres and up to a speed of 50 km/h.

Photo gallery: Volkswagen Passat Alltrack

Photo gallery: Volkswagen Touareg Hybrid