[Auto] High and mighty: VW Tiguan R vs Mercedes-AMG GLB 35

[Agent47]

 

 

Can we pretend that neither the finest hot hatchback of the modern era, nor one of its more accomplished adversaries, ever existed? Just for the next 10 minutes? It’s the only way we’re going to get through this test while giving these crossovers a fair hearing, because the truth is that the new Volkswagen Tiguan R and Mercedes-AMG GLB 35 are deliberately and irreversibly compromised from the outset.

The hot hatches in question are the Golf R and the AMG A35. Both are great performance cars, but especially so the Golf, which has during the past decade gained a reputation for excellence based on its sublime mix of everyday usability and prolific speed. If you want unassuming yet exciting, the Volkswagen is where you start.

Excellence is a fragile thing, though. If you were to inject an extra 195kg into the latest Golf R, pull the axles 49mm farther apart and set the seats a Coke can higher, you’d expect to jeopardise the recipe. Which, not to put it too bluntly, is what the Tiguan R does. The GLB 35 takes a similar approach, only with the A35 as its base and with an even more significant accretion of flab. It weighs almost 1800kg all-in and is 99kg heavier than the VW. And all this even though neither car carries anything more wholesome than an inline four. Porkier, taller and wider than we’d like, they’re both resolutely compromised.

But that’s the last we’ll say by way of comparison to the hatchbacks. Clearly these crossovers will be dynamically inferior to their progenitors, but they’re worth exploring because in isolation they still seem to have an awful lot going for them –and, of course, the market demands them. Alongside the GLB, AMG now makes no fewer than 10 further SUV derivatives, which is more than any other bodystyle, and Volkswagen already has dedicated R-badged models for the T-Roc and Touareg, which straddle the Tiguan in terms of seniority.
So what exactly are these cars? Fast, for one thing. The Tiguan R is the marginally more potent and accelerative of the two, but each pairs more than 300bhp from a 2.0-litre turbo engine with four-wheel drive and a dual-clutch automatic gearbox. Both will smash 60mph in around five seconds, and both cabins are replete with the kind of heavily bolstered seats and perforated steering wheels and shiny pedals you’d expect to find only in something seriously quick. The duo’s exterior design doesn’t leave any room for interpretation, either. Radiator vanes are threateningly visible through open-worked bumpers and brakes glint from behind manhole-cover alloys that fit snug inside wheel arches beefed up with plastic cladding. If they were people, these two would be dedicated-to-their-family types but with lengthy criminal records.

They would have expensive tastes, too. You’ll receive little change from £50,000 for the Volkswagen and none at all for the Mercedes, so the several-cars-in-one proposition they each offer is very much priced in. As a reference point, the 385bhp V6-engined Mercedes-AMG C43 Estate costs just under £53,000. Permission to wince granted.
Slide aboard easily and you’ll find the Mercedes wears its asking price more confidently than the Volkswagen. In the UK, the GLB 35 comes only in top-level Premium Plus trim, which includes the parallel 10.3in displays and more amenities than you could want. Beyond the slight chintz of metal-dipped plastics, this cabin simply feels more premium and plush in both its materials and layout. The seats are a bit ordinary, especially compared with the VW’s Alcantara-trimmed semi-buckets, and they squeeze my thighs together too enthusiastically, but the enveloping GLB otherwise seems made for cosy big-distance drives. In ergonomic terms, it also has one seat-related trick up its exhaust: space for seven. It’s an ungainly beast from almost every angle, but below that square roofline you can get two children in the folding third row.

In contrast, the VW feels spacious and airy, which is confusing. A sense of loftiness is welcome in a straightforward SUV but it’s not necessarily what you want in a performance car, and the Tiguan R wants to be both those things. Perhaps that’s why it feels disjointed after sitting in the GLB 35, which is also spacious but whose seats are more low-slung in relation to the chunky scuttle and whose ambience is much more mature and car-like.
The driving position in the VW is awkwardly upright. It even feels a long way down to reach for the utility-grade gearlever. The go-faster elements, which include very prominent gearshift paddles, exist in conflict with this architecture – imagine having a white tablecloth and mahogany chairs in McDonald’s. It’d be unconvincing and unsettling, and so it is with the slightly plasticky confines of Tiguan.