Volkswagen Amarok: The Thinking Person's Pick-up

Images By Hayden Povey.

The modern SUV has become the de facto family chariot. Tall, comfortable, laden with technology and more often than not, about as likely to see mud as a Dyson showroom. Yet for all their polish, there’s a sense that the SUV has lost touch with its original brief: utility.

And this is where the Volkswagen Amarok enters the picture. Once the preserve of tradesmen and towing loyalists, the one-tonne pick-up has evolved into something altogether more nuanced. Could it be that a Pick-Up now challenges the SUV on comfort, refinement and even desirability?

The Amarok isn’t pretending to be an SUV by the way but it does offer all the credibility of a working truck with the sort of refinement that would once have been unthinkable. And if you happen to live somewhere with potholes, ponies or persistent bad weather, you might just find it’s the more honest companion.

The Amarok has always been an interesting addition to Volkswagen’s otherwise buttoned-up line-up. The original, launched around 2010 was VW’s first foray into the world of the one-tonne pick-up, which was a space previously dominated by Hiluxes, L200s and Rangers. It was a slow burn success at first, never quite mainstream but admired from afar (and not just by your local Builder either).

This new Amarok though, feels more grown up. Co-developed with Ford, it shares its underpinnings with the latest Ranger yet manages to distinguish itself above and beyond the Ford. The styling is more subtle, the cabin is more ergonomic and inside it’s recognisably Volkswagen, namely solid, functional and more expensive feeling across the board.

The PanAmericana sits near the top of the range and offers a nice blend of luxury and ruggedness that VW’s marketing department refers to as “premium off-road”. In real terms, this means leather seats, digital dials, matrix LED headlights and a healthy dose of hose-down black plastic matting to reassure you that your muddy wellingtons won’t bother the interior too much.

Accepted, that when you stoke up the 3.0-litre V6 TDI, you still get a very utilitarian tone but it’s worth pointing out that this engine has done time in pretty much everything from the Touareg to the Audi A6 and it remains one of the most unsung in the business - muscular, low-revving and satisfyingly torquey. With 237 bhp and 600 Nm of torque, it doesn’t shout about its performance so much as just deliver it.

The 10-speed automatic gearbox sounds like a logistical nightmare but this box of cogs is actually calm and decisive, shuffling ratios almost imperceptibly. The 4Motion system manages traction without fuss but if you want to play around, then a hi/low ratio box as well as all manner of locking diff setting exist to make wet grass, farm tracks and sandy beaches feel largely irrelevant to progress through. In fact, I think I would trust this a little more than your Q7’s and your X5’s in similar conditions.

The extra grab handles on the A and B pillars aren’t for effect. They serve as a permanent reminder that the Amarok is still a vehicle designed for reaching some pretty interesting entry angle points.

And yet, flip the coin and on the road, it’s lovely. The suspension is really soft and spongy and there’s a bit of lean through corners (like a true SUV). It’s so well-damped that it puts you in a semi-somnolent mood and I’m cool with that as I’m hardly about to test the 0-60 in this thing. Upshot is, I drove the Amarok for days and felt none the worse for it.

I would say that the Amarok’s interior is simple and restrained and push comes to a shove, also a really nice place to be in. There’s a sense of quality that immediately distances it from the agricultural cabins of old-school pick-ups. Soft-touch materials, tactile buttons (thankfully physical, not haptic) and a large vertical touchscreen in the middle complete the look and feel.

Still, there’s something rather appealing about its restraint. It’s the thinking person’s pick-up. It doesn’t shout about its capabilities or pretend to be indestructible. It just gets on with things, in that solid, slightly self-effacing German way.

It’s also eerily quiet at speed, which I think is proof that VW’s acoustic engineers weren’t just along for the ride. There’s a faint hum from the tyres, a muted clack from the TDI and that’s really about it.

The seating position is one of the few quirks though. At 6’4”, I expected to leap into the Amarok and discover more open space than a pub garden in February. The reality was that I actually found myself wishing for just another two or three inches of rearward travel in the seat rails to be 100% comfortable. Space is generous but not vast and if you’re expecting masses of room, you may actually find it a touch snug.

Practicality remains the strong point though. The bed will swallow a standard Euro pallet and the payload nudges one tonne. It’ll tow 3.5 tonnes without complaint but where the old Amarok felt like a working truck, I have to say that this new one feels more like something you could live with all the time. It’s striking how straight it feels. Despite the marketing glitz of the PanAmericana name, the Amarok still comes across as a tool and a lifestyle statement.

As mentioned, it shares its bones with the Ford Ranger but you really don’t get a sense of that level – plus Ford knows how to build a truck, so that is certainly no criticism. For me, Volkswagen polishes it all off and the final result is a pick-up truck like no other.

Of course, this amount of mechanics comes at a cost. At £66,866, this is not cheap. You could still buy a well-equipped SUV for that money, or a Ranger Wildtrak with more kit for that matter. So think about this before you make the decision, as I think the Amarok sits in its own particular (or peculiar?) department.

Most importantly, it’s a truck that feels genuinely comfortable on our battered roads, it’s an easy companion for long commutes, rural life or simply the school run in bad weather. Volkswagen may have stumbled across a true crossover: a pick-up that’s versatile, reliable and classy.

Model: Volkswagen Amarok PanAmericana

Base Price (As Driven): £59,124 (£66,866)

Propulsion: 3.0-Litre V6 TDI BiTurbo

Drivetrain: 10spd Automatic 4MOTION

Output: 237 bhp

Torque: 600 Nm

0-62 mph: 9.0 Seconds

Top Speed: 112 mph

Kerb Weight: 2,339 kg

Payload: 1,054 kg

C02 Emissions (WLTP Combined: 270 -265 g/km (max/min).

Consumption (combined): 28.0 mpg

https://www.volkswagen-vans.co.uk/en.html