VW is treating its SUV-loving customers to a brand-new Tiguan this year, but it hasn’t left out the drivers shopping for bigger and smaller models. Both the Touareg and the little T-Cross seen here are scheduled to get a minor refresh, and our spy photographers have caught the T-Cross almost completely undisguised.
We say ‘almost’ because while this latest T-Cross prototype has dropped the heavy camouflage seen on earlier test cars, a close look reveals it’s wearing one of those sneaky tape disguises VW’s R&D pranksters love to apply to their secret cars to try to trick us into thinking they’re the current model.
In this case, the T-Cross has tape on the lower corner of the headlights in an attempt to obscure the fact that the lamp units have grown more square, as well as tape on the middle section of the bumper mimicking the dog-bone inset seen on the current SUV’s bumpers. Mentally peeling away the tape, we expect the finished car to feature more body-color paint on the bumper and have triangular air intakes on either side.
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The rest of the nose doesn’t initially appear that different, but comparing old and new images confirms that the grille is slightly wider than before and features small changes to the horizontal slats. We can also see that the silver bar that reaches diagonally upwards from each lower corner of the bumper now stretches closer to the grille. Changes at the back of VW’s refreshed Nissan Juke rival are less significant and focus on a new LED signature to match the reconfigured DRLs up front, though the n-shaped silver bar reaches further north, just like the one at the front.
We’re not expecting to see any mind-blowing changes under the skin, where the current lineup of 94 hp (95 PS) and 109 hp (110 PS) 1.0-liter, and 148 hp (150 PS) 1.5-liter turbocharged petrol engines are likely to be carried over. Volkswagen did offer a 1.6 diesel when the T-Cross was launched in 2018, but that was axed a while back and almost certainly won’t make a return.
