Under its Volkswagen badge, the new Amarok is basically a new Ford Ranger. The Amarok and Ranger are not-so-distant cousins thanks to a partnership between VW and Ford, which agreed to build the midsize truck for the German automaker. This makes the lack of a single cab, stick-shift Ranger in the U.S. all the more painful because it turns out that Ford is making a practical, simple Ranger for markets abroad, according to the Drive.
The Amarok’s claim to fame (at least around these parts) is its common rail diesel engine and decent off-road performance. The Amarok is just one of the neat midsize trucks we don’t get in the U.S., where pickups aspire to be luxury vehicles.
Trucks once embodied the ethos of “it’s just me and all my shit” more than any other vehicle type. For misanthropes like me — who prefer driving in solitude ensconced in a tiny cabin — small trucks were the bee’s knees. Put a dog in that bench seat and you had a happy family. But that’s not the case anymore now that trucks are lucrative and popular vehicles that dealers make big profits on.
The small single cabs that propelled Toyota to the fore and made the Tacoma and Hilux legendary started out as workaday machines. And older examples remain endearing due to their simple construction. The Ford Ranger and the Chevy S10 — and, later, the Colorado — were a reply from the American OEMs to their Japanese rivals.
The Ford Ranger is now a bigger, more refined truck that’ll be sold in the U.S. as a double cab with an automatic transmission. The baton of the truck as we knew it is now carried by the single cab Rangers that Ford will build at the Silverton Assembly Plant in South Africa, many of which will be rebadged as Amaroks.
The single cab VW Amarok has 44 percent more cargo room in its bed than the double cab, according to Car Sales AU. The two-door Amarok is available with a 2.0-liter inline-four turbodiesel making 147 horsepower and 258 lb-ft of torque. That engine is mated to a five-speed manual transmission. Another drivetrain with optional AWD is also available, and it makes 168 hp and 299 lb-ft of torque despite still being a 2.0-liter inline-four turbodiesel. This one’s mated to a six-speed stick. The truck is currently sold in its native South Africa, but it’s unclear if it’ll be sold in South America. Ford has another Ranger assembly plant in Argentina, which VW could leverage for greater sales of its new single cab truck.
