VW Touareg tows a 747

GTV V6

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I just spotted this on autoexpress...

http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/news/autoexpressnews/203948/volkswagen_touareg.html

As it was done at Dunsfold, it may appear on TG, though it isn't mentioned in the article.

I must admit it's a good effort, even though it was loaded up with 4,3 tonnes of ballast, they said it was a standard car.

I'm not sure it was completely standard though, in the picture it looks remarkably level so I rekon the springs have been changed. Also I don't think the Touareg comes with a low range box, so maybe the gearbox or at least the clutch have been uprated too.

At least someone seems to have found a use for the 747 we keep seeing on the runway :cool:
 
initially it looks awesome. But many many cars can do this if they have the proper gearing and towing equipment
 
All that ballast is cheating. At that weight, the Toureg is basically just an aircraft tug. That's the second time this week that plane has shown up on the forums.:cool:
 
Big deal, I've seen a Russian guy do the exact same thing with his nipples.
 
Big deal, I've seen a Russian guy do the exact same thing with his nipples.
An australian named David Huxley pulled a heavyer 747-400 in 1996, so Touareg V10 TDi owner can now go to bed assured that their car is almost as strong as a big aussie bloke... :lmao:
 
All that ballast is cheating. At that weight, the Toureg is basically just an aircraft tug. That's the second time this week that plane has shown up on the forums.:cool:

but wouldn't it still need all that torque to tow a Plane?
 
what was the purpose of the ballast?
 
traction. the touareg was much too light to get the 747 rolling.....the wheels would just have spun without being pushed down on the road
 
Hmmm. To be fair....I think that relies on a lot a assumed ignorance on VWs Press Office. It really isn't that hard to move a plane. The world record for the heaviest aircraft pulled by A MAN is 187 tonnes.

You can calculate the rolling resistance of a 747 using:

F=C*N

F=Resistive force
C=Rolling resistance coefficient
N=Normal force (Total mass divided by number of wheels)

A 747 200 has 18 wheels so N=190,000/18 = 10,555 kg per wheel

Now a car tyre on concrete has a C value of around 0.01-0.015. Let's play it safe though as it was wet and suggest that an aircraft tyre on wet concrete is 0.05 which is a massively high resistance.

0.05*10555=520N

Now....I know you're saying...hang on a tick...that's quite close considering the Touareg only produces around 700Nm torque, but even with just a standard transaxel you're seeing over 2000Nm at the wheels and that doesn't even take into account the product of the gears or torque converter. This is indeed I imagine where the 'theoretic towing capacity of 200 tonnes' comes from. With that kind of torque output you could literally move 200 tonnes which is a simply massive amount. That would probably be like towing the plane along the runway on it's belly!

IMO...someone in the PR department said...I know...let's tow something huge with a Touareg and to make it look really impressive they thought they'd make it sound really hard to do!
 
but wouldn't it still need all that torque to tow a Plane?
Well yeah, obviously. But all that ballast changed the characteristics of the VW so much that it's kind of a false representation of the vehicle's abilities. (The ad would read something like "The Touareg can tow a 747"...well yeah, but it wasn't really a 'normal' Touareg) Yet this is a fact I'll keep in mind if I ever need to tow something: more weight in the towing vehicle is a good thing.
 
Heh, not bad. But it does take the air out of it, knowing that a man can pull one. :p

I always wondered, why that 747 has two sets of two engines, as opposed to four engines by itself? I remember seeing it throughout the past couple series, where it went from engines->no engines->B-52 style engines :D
 
what was the purpose of the ballast?
My uncle works at an airport. Part of his job is working as a mechanic on the pushbacks (the big ass tractors that push the planes away from the terminal).

The older models weighed 10,000lbs (5 tons) without a motor or transmission. The new models weigh close to 70 tons. That's as much as a tank. They build the body out of 4 inch thick solid steel. All the weight helps with traction against the 200 ton airplane and against the jet engines idleing.
 
I'm not sure it was completely standard though, in the picture it looks remarkably level so I rekon the springs have been changed. Also I don't think the Touareg comes with a low range box, so maybe the gearbox or at least the clutch have been uprated too.

doesn't the touareg have air suspension that would level itself?
 
It can tow a 747, but for some reason the damn check engine light won't go off! (usual VW reliability)
 
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