Volkswagen Tiguan R SPIED at the Nurburgring ahead of 2019 debut

The Volkswagen Tiguan R – VW’s take on the Cupra Ateca – is spied on video at the Nurbrgring ahead of a likely reveal at the Frankfurt Motor Show.

Performance SUVs are quite the thing, with offerings from every ‘Premium’ car maker gobbling up remarkable sales. But is there a market for performance mainstream compact SUVs?

The first to arrive in this SUV niche was the Cupra Ateca – the first standalone model from SEAT’s new Cupra brand – which arrived at the beginning of 2018, and it looks like Hyundai is planning a Tucson N to join the party.

But VW was never going to let Cupra deliver a performance Ateca without responding in kind, so we have a new VW Tiguan R on the horizon, and it’s been caught testing at the Nurburgring, on video, ahead of a likely debut at the Frankfurt Motor Show later this year.

Using the same 2.0 litre turbo four-pot as the Ateca, the Tiguan R is likely to deliver almost identical performance and power, which means 296bhp and 0-62mph in 6.0 seconds, thanks in part to its 4WD setup.

The Tiguan R in the video looks to be sporting VW’s R-Line trim, but the giveaway is the set of twin exhausts peeping out the back. Whether VW decide to stick with this trim or ‘enhance’ it to define the R version remains to be seen.

Spec is likely to be an up-specced version of the R-Line – with stuff like leather, panoramic roof and digital instruments – and adaptive suspension and uprated brakes seems a likely shout too.

Volkswagen Tiguan R Spy Video