Volkswagen has offered a closer look at its next-generation Amarok ute, which has been developed hand-in-hand with the 2022 Ford Ranger.
The two latest sketches of the Amarok offer a closer look at its exterior design, and a first peek at its cabin. Both have a South African flavour, in a nod to where the next-generation Amarok will be built.
It’ll be revealed in the middle of 2022, around the same time as the related Ford Ranger will be touching down in Australian showrooms. The Amarok will go on sale late in 2022 for Europe, and will arrive in Australia early in 2023.
Volkswagen hasn’t detailed what will power the Amarok, but a turbo-diesel V6 engine option is a certainty.
The new Volkswagen Amarok
Currently, a whopping 90 per cent of Amarok sales in Australia feature the V6 engine, and Ford has added a 3.0-litre V6 to the 2022 Ranger line-up. It’s not clear if Volkswagen will use its own engine, or share the Ford Ranger unit.
The exterior sketch follows closely in the footsteps of our previous look at the Amarok.
The front end appears to drag the current car’s look into line with the wider Volkswagen range, with lights that take inspiration from those of the plus-sized Atlas SUV sold in the USA and China. The grille and detailing look tougher than the road-biased looks of the Atlas, however.
The interior features what looks like a vertically-oriented touchscreen, just like the Ranger, but the seats and steering wheel are pure Volkswagen based on what we can see.
“What you see here is very much a Volkswagen,” said Ryan Davies, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles Australia national sales manager.
“The Amarok has genuine Volkswagen DNA,” he said. “This is the car our designers both Melbourne and in Europe have been working on tirelessly over the last few years, to come up with a car that expresses what we know are the absolute attributes of Volkswagen.”
Volkswagen has previously told CarExpert it has “for the past two years had a team from Germany based in Melbourne developing the generation-two Amarok”.
“Amarok and Ranger are the two best utes on the market and this project cannot fail to make both better,” a Volkswagen Australia spokesperson said.
Although we don’t know what will feature under the skin of the new Amarok, we know plenty about the 2022 Ford Ranger:
- Three engines will be offered at launch: single- and bi-turbo four-cylinder options, and a 3.0-litre V6. They’re all diesels
- Five trim levels will be available at launch, ranging from XL to Wildtrak. A Ranger Raptor will follow
- Top-spec cars will have a 12-inch vertical touchscreen inside, cheaper cars get a 10-inch unit
- Sales will start in the middle of 2022 for Australia
