Volkswagen Atlas Cross Sport (US) review

It may have ‘Sport’ in its name and share its engine with the Golf GTI, but the Atlas Cross Sport is not actually very sporty at all. It weighs well over 4,000lbs before you’ve loaded it with kids and kit, and despite Volkswagen claiming that there’s new ‘noise-reducing reinforcements’ on the crankcase and additional sound insulation around the air intake, the four-pot engine sounds strained if you work it too hard.

The eight-speed auto gearbox constantly hunts for the highest gear to improve economy. Pair that with a small, turbocharged engine that’s laggy at low revs and it’s fairly obvious that you won’t have the most responsive SUV. Sticking the Atlas Cross Sport into sport mode helps (and perhaps shows how they got a 0-60mph time of 7.5 seconds), but this is not a car that likes to be driven hard.

What about if I don’t drive everywhere on the limit?

A more relaxed approach certainly suits the Atlas Cross Sport. It’s a comfortable cruiser that (when you’re not thrashing it) doesn’t transmit too much road or engine noise into the cabin. It manages a decent drag coefficient of 0.33 too so there’s not too much wind noise at highway speeds.

Allow it to breathe and the Atlas Cross Sport feels more like a premium SUV, with decent damping and a suspension setup that’s firm but doesn’t let bumps crash through the cabin. It’ll corner fairly neatly too without masses of bodyroll.

Can it go off-road?

Well, VW does make a point of mentioning the 6.3 inches of ground clearance, the approach angle of 20.8 degrees and the departure angles of 21.3/21.1 degrees (FWD/AWD), and of course you can spec 4Motion all-wheel drive, but even if you do the Atlas Cross Sport still only drives its front wheels for the majority of the time. The rear wheels only get drive when things get slippy, although up to 50 per cent of the torque can be sent that way so the Cross Sport is able to get itself out of tight spots.

We drove an all-wheel drive model in the snow and (with help from the dedicated snow mode) it coped admirably on all-season tires.

Is it economical? 

Ah, not massively. Despite the drop to four-cylinders, the Atlas Cross Sport still only registers a combined 22mpg when equipped with the optional all-wheel drive, according to the EPA. That climbs to 26mpg on the highway, but over 750 miles of real-world driving we saw an average of 22.2mpg.