YOU CAN’T TOUCH THIS

Let’s start with the very basics; you can’t actually buy this car in the UK or Europe. The Volkswagen Atlas comes with the 3.6-litre VR6, and it’s the biggest SUV that the group produces in the world. Oh, and it’s only available in North America, the Middle East, China and Russia!

Last year, Volkswagen decided to chop a bit off the back of the full-size Atlas, and create another version - the Atlas Cross Sport, which is the car you see here. Here we ask, was can it really be sporty, what's it capable of, would it work in the UK, and what happens when you drive one into a race track corner at 115mph with the guys from Hoonigan live streaming from the passenger seat? Stay tuned to find out the answers.

THE MOTOR

Both the full size Atlas and the Cross Sport versions are built on the MQB platform, which underpins pretty much all of the Volkswagen Group medium and larger cars these days. The Atlas is a big, wide seven-seater that dwarfs the Tiguan Allspace. A few years after the Atlas launched stateside (in 2018), Volkswagen wanted a slightly shorter version so removed the 3rd row of seats, gave it a more sporty rear end, and called it the Atlas Cross Sport. Same elbow room, same options of 2.0T and 3.6 engines, and well, ‘Sporty’ in name at least.

For whatever reason, the