Coupe SUVs are a strange thing. We don’t always buy cars for practical purposes, but an SUV is inherently made to be utilitarian — I mean, it’s right there in the acronym! That’s what the U stands for! So, I was a bit torn with the 2024 Volkswagen Atlas Cross Sport. I expected to dislike the very premise of this thing, but after road-tripping it from Toronto to Pittsburgh and back, I returned home having fully enjoyed what this rolling enigma had to offer.
Photos don’t really do the Atlas Cross Sport justice. It has a commanding presence in-person, more so decked out in our tester’s lovely Kingfisher Blue paint, a mainly blue hue with a subtle hint of green. Up front, the Atlas gets a mildly restyled front end for 2024, accentuated by a new light bar connecting the headlights. Around back, the tail lights are fully connected with another light bar; the party trick on both ends being light-up VW badges. I generally don’t like light-up badges, but VW pulled it off, coming across as crisp and clean-looking, and somehow feels not-as-gimmicky on the Atlas. Overall, it retains its boxy shape since its inception in 2017, but the minor enhancements keep the Atlas fresh for 2024.
The Cross Sport retains most of that boxiness, and I’m shocked the sloping coupe roofline somehow works here. You wouldn’t think something boxy could pull off the “sporty” roofline, but Volkswagen integrates it well, making it look athletic while maintaining the commanding look. The design team got this one right. Even the 21-inch wheels are attractive.
The Atlas’ interior also sees a marked update for 2024, but whether this is a good thing is a question we’ve been asking a lot lately with other VWs. On the plus side, it looks modern and clean, with a wonderful digital gauge cluster — with the “R” display from the Golf R, funny enough — plus a bright 12-inch touchscreen with clean and crisp graphics for infotainment duties. I appreciate VW’s fully integrated ambient lighting system, in that the colour selections not only apply to the accent lighting, but the gauge cluster and infotainment menus as well. It makes for an immersive experience. The party trick is the “Cross Sport” graphic that illuminates through the trim on the passenger side. It looks great at night!
But as with many other VWs we’ve tested recently, our problems centre around usability. Like the ID.4, GTI, and Golf R, the touch/slider controls under the infotainment screen are unlit, making basic functions difficult to see at night, and equally difficult to use in motion. Where the Atlas Cross Sport gains back some points is with its steering wheel controls; rather than the haptic feedback panels we’ve seen elsewhere in VW’s lineup, the Atlas gets actual buttons. This alone gives the Atlas Cross Sport a pass from me, as it allows for mostly annoyance-free interactions with the vehicle — and this is coming from a (former) MK8 GTI owner. Still, if physical buttons and dials for volume and climate control is too much to ask for, I’d prefer the controls under the touchscreen be at least illuminated.
The rest of the new interior is fantastic. The black leather seats (with blue accents) are attractive and comfy, even sitting after a five-hour road trip. Materials and fit-and-finished are much improved for 2024 as well, with more soft-touch surfaces throughout. Passenger space is cavernous, and trunk space is generous enough to easily pack four people’s worth of gear, including the travelling circus my six-month-old requires. The Cross Sport is a rare instance where its sloping roofline has no adverse effect on storage space or rear-seat headroom, since this thing is so big to begin with. Don’t get me wrong, it technically has less space than the standard Atlas, but barely so and there’s still more than enough room.
Forward momentum is a bit different this year, with the VR6 now dead in favour of a 2.0-litre turbo-four. For a vehicle weighing near 4,400 pounds, a four cylinder is hardly exciting and may even seem insufficient. But the turbo-four punches in above its weight — it provides 269 horsepower at 5,500 RPM and 273 pound-feet of torque at a very low 1,600 RPM — and I don’t actually miss the VR6 one bit. It’s paired to an eight-speed automatic transmission; it isn’t the fastest-shifting automatic in the world, but it suits the Atlas’ character well, and all-wheel-drive is standard in Canada. It all comes together to make the Atlas Cross Sport feel peppy in most situations. The suspension and steering are well-calibrated as well, providing a mostly comfortable ride that ever so slightly errs on the side of sporty. It’s a much more confidence-inspiring ride than the original Atlas, which felt boaty and floaty in all the wrong ways.
This refreshed 2024 Volkswagen Atlas Cross Sport is easy to drive for long journeys, and fun enough to drive around town without feeling like a land yacht. The exterior is handsome, and outside a few user-interface quirks, the interior is comfortable and spacious. This thing is a hit — when the rest of the formula is this good, there’s nothing wrong with not making sense on paper.
