Volkswagen SA has finally taken covers off the T-Roc SUV. The new VW SUV will slot in between the T-Cross and the Tiguan, and bring the number of VW SUVs offered locally to 4. The T-Roc will be offered in three flavours with two engines doing duty in the range.

Looks

The T-Roc employs a wide grille with a distinctive LED signature. The bumper incorporates fog lamps and two unique honeycombed housings above them.

Moving to the side, the wheel arches are wrapped in a black strip that makes its way from the front fender, down the sides and to the back. The element that stands out is the C-Pillar which has a coupe design.

The rear features a unique light design for the LED rights and is reminiscent of the Golf-R.

The T-Roc is the first Volkswagen SUV that will be available to order in two-tone paintwork with visually contrasting roof section (including the A-pillars and exterior mirror housings). These roof and exterior mirror housings can be paired with various exterior colours, thus giving T-Roc customers 26 different colour options. The R-Line derivative will have 21 different colour options.

The Design derivatives come standard with the 17-inch Mayfield alloy wheel and have two further options of an 18-inch Montego alloy wheel as well as an 18-inch Grange Hill alloy wheel. The R-Line derivative comes standard with the 19-inch Suzuka alloy wheel. On the Design derivatives, customers have a choice of pure white, red and black on the roof and exterior mirror housings.

 Interior

The T-Roc is offered with a standard limestone grey dashboard colour. Those opting for the Design derivative have a further three interior colours. The R-Line derivative is offered with a Caribou Grey interior. Ambient lighting comes in white in the Design derivative and in red for the R-Line derivative.

The T-Roc will come standard with Composition Media radio and App-Connect. The Composition radio has an 8-inch colour touch screen with two USB ports easily located in the centre console of the vehicle. In addition to being able to charge your phone via the USB ports, the Composition Media radio also has the option for compatible phones to be charged wirelessly. This mobile inductive charging function is standard on the R-Line derivative. Discover Media infotainment is available as an optional feature for those requiring navigation.

The instrument cluster can be full digitalised with the optional Active Info Display digital cluster which is offered with an 11.7-inch screen.

Being bigger than the T-Cross and just smaller than the Tiguan, the T-Roc offers 445 litres of luggage space. This expands to 1,290 litres when the rear seats are folded down. The backrests can also be folded down in a 60/40 split.

Technology

The T-Toc comes with a number active and passive safety features, including Electronic Stability Control (ESC), Park Distance Control, LED Headlights, Light and Vision Package, Blind Spot Monitor and Fatigue Detection.

In addition to these safety features, semi-autonomous I.Q Drive technologies are also available on the T-Roc. The I.Q Drive technologies included in the T-Roc are Park Assist, Emergency Assist, Front Assist, Traffic Jam Assist, Adaptive Cruise Control and Lane Assist. Emergency assist is offered as standard.

Specifications

Standard specification on the 1.4 TSI Design and 2.0 TSI Design derivatives include climatronic air conditioning, LED tail light cluster, visual underbody guard (black) and Park Distance Control (front and rear).

The top-of-the-range T-Roc R-Line comes standard with high-tech systems such as Front Assist area monitoring with City Emergency Braking and Pedestrian Monitoring, the Automatic Post-Collision Braking System and the lane keeping system Lane Assist. Also standard on R-Line derivative are the Light Assist package, LED daytime running lights in the bumper and dynamic cornering lights, 19-inch Suzuka alloy wheels, the latest generation Active info display, Keyless entry, Mobile phone inductive charging, Adaptive Cruise Control with Front Assist and Vienna leather seats.

Optional features on all derivatives includes; the panoramic sunroof, electronic trailer hitch, smoker’s package, Discover Pro navigation system with a 9.2-inch screen, the Beats sound system and the Park Package.

Engines

The T-Roc will be offered with a choice of two petrol engines at launch. At the entry of the range is a 1.4 TSI with 110kW and 250Nm. Paired with an 8-speed Tiptronic transmission, this will sees the car  reach 0 – 100km/h in 8.4 seconds before hitting a top speed of 205 km/h. Fuel consumption seats at a combined 6.9l/100km.

The 2.0 TSI engine is the second engine in the range and has a power output of 140kW and torque of 320Nm. It is paired with a 7-speed DSG transmission and is also available with 4MOTION. It takes just 7.2 seconds to go from 0 – 100km, with the top speed being 216km. The fuel consumption on this engine is 8.3l/100km.

Pricing

Due to the volatility of exchange rates in the last few months, Volkswagen South Africa will only announce pricing for the T-Roc range in August 2020.