The head of Volkswagen’s commercial vehicles division has admitted the Amarok would have been scrapped were it not for the German firm’s alliance with Ford.
Thomas Sedran, chairman of the board of management of Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, confirmed VW wouldn’t have been able to build a second-generation Amarok without some sort of “collaboration”.
“Ultimately it is our customers who will benefit, as without the co-operation we would not have developed a new Amarok,” he said.
Sedran also announced the new Amarok will be produced “as of 2022” at Ford’s Silverton plant in South Africa, alongside the next-gen Ranger. However, despite sharing a platform, he promised the alliance would “clearly differentiate the two models”.
A subsequent report out of Australia claims the second-gen Amarok will not only be based on the Ford Ranger’s platform but use the Blue Oval bakkie’s engines, too. If the report turns out to be accurate, that’d mean the end of the line for the current Amarok’s 3,0-litre V6 oil-burner.
In March 2020, VW released the first teaser sketch of the second-generation Amarok (prompting this render). At the start of 2019, the two firms announced the first “formal agreements in a broad alliance” that would include the Blue Oval brand engineering and building “medium-sized” bakkies “for both companies”.
That initial joint statement from the two brands indicated the first bakkies built under the alliance would hit the market “as early as 2022”.
