A big car for a big family

VW TIGUAN ALLSPACE CAN SEAT SEVEN FOR ANY JOURNEY

Two’s company, and three’s a crowd but when it comes to a family, four’s company and five (or more) is most definitely a crowd. I have no doubt that families who have three or more children love them all dearly, and equally, but the reality is that more than two offspring provides for all sorts of problems the parents probably didn’t envisage in the throes of contraceptive-less passion.

Primary among those problems is transport. Most modern cars are built to safely transport, and accommodate four people – whether you call those people children or adults, or a mixture of both is immaterial.

Sedans and hatchbacks have two rows of seats – the driver’s (accommodating two) and the passenger row (normally taking another two sitting comfortably and possibly one extra squashed into the middle for short, and very uncomfortable, journeys).

The two-plus-two configuration is perfect for the mom and dad and two kids family – although even that will be a stretch of space if you are heading to the coast for the holidays or away for a long weekend.

The fact that many family hatchbacks and sedans these days have tow hitches fitted speaks to the inadequacy of luggage space.

When you have three or more kids, even the commute around town becomes problematic, because the seat belts in the rear row of seats will only take three. So – what to do? In the past decade or so, we have seen a number of car makers adding a third row of seats to their vehicles – usually to SUVs and “people carriers”.

I have never been a huge fan of that because I worry about the safety of those in the back row. After all, their precious little heads are not far from the impact of a rear-end collision, are they?

Volkswagen’s eye-catching Tiguan SUV – refreshed last year – has now been given just such an extra row of seats. The company assures buyers that the car would not have been built had it not been able to satisfying strict European occupant safety standards, and I’ll take their word on that.

The Tiguan AllSpace will seat seven in varying degrees of comfort – the people in the last row won’t feel that comfortable after a long trip if they’re very tall – and will do the job of transporting them in reliable, elegant German style, as you’d expect.

The Tiguan AllSpace we had on test was the FourMotion allwheel-drive version, which is highly capable off-road, as long as the conditions are not too hectic. It will help you to not get stuck on our sometimes unpredictable country roads, though, and that is a big bonus, in my view.

It is also entertaining to drive: think of it as a Golf with hiking boots. Handling is among the best you’ll find on any SUV, anywhere, and, despite this, the ride is comfortable, too. VW’s engineers certainly know how to set up a suspension.

There’s also your choice of a variety of diesel and petrol engines, catering for every sort of driver, from the race-everywhere type to the “watch the fuel economy type”, like me. I must admit, that with the 162kW turbopetrol version we had I was tempted to use the power on one or two occasions to give people a lesson that this Tiguan was no Mom’s Taxi…

Still, when I would look at the Tiguan, one thought more than any other would spring to mind: How the hell do you cope with more than two kids?