Can 2.3 Million Owners Be Wrong

Is this the most boring car in the world?

It was dubbed ‘boring’ at birth and has made no effort to shrug off the label… but Volkswagen is having the last laugh with its functional family Touran as the model celebrates 15 years of sales and a staggering 2.3 MILLION customers.

Which all goes to show that a raft or rubbish reviews doesn’t seem to dent sales. In fact, the Touran is a car that got off to a slow-clap start and never really shrugged it off.

Not long after it was unleashed on the world in 2003, the Daily Telegraph didn’t hold back about VW’s small MPV, calling it a “characterless mould”. The makers, the paper said, “have devised a package of stultifying, deadly virtues. Mute, dull, without passion, artless. Just looking at it feels like having your brain zapped by one of those electromagnets that stall all cortical activity and drop you into cognitive limbo.”

Despite a facelift in 2010, Autocar said “It's just a pity that, in spite of the sharp new front and rear ends, the Touran still looks so boring,” while Clarkson declared “The styling is right, chiefly because there isn’t any. It’s modelled, from what I can see, on the box in which chest freezers are delivered. All the same, he recommended it “If you’ve given up on life”.