Ford has just presented its new Ranger as a future volume pick-up for all corners of the world, and there is a tentative outlook from Hanover on the upcoming VW Amarok. It should roll to dealers in the second half of 2022 – on the technical basis of the new Ranger.
Pick-ups are a gigantic market worldwide, but in Europe the off-road vehicles with the large loading area have been struggling unusually for decades. Time and again, there have been more or less serious attempts by various manufacturers to do significant business in Europe. Mercedes was already offering the first generation of its G-Class as a commercial vehicle with an open loading area, and the original Land Rover Defender had been a rustic pick-up not only for the army for years. Since the powerful full-size pick-ups such as Ford F-150, Chevrolet Silverado or Ram 1500 are only sold in homeopathic cans by importers across Europe, unlike in the USA, the supposed middle-class pick-up is mostly over. For years, the Ford Ranger has been the bestseller as the little brother of the US mass-produced F-150 model. Although the current generation is being phased out and is about to be replaced, there was a Europe-wide sales record of 45,000 vehicles in 2020, which means a market share of almost 40 percent. Competitors such as the Mercedes X-Class, the Renault Alaskan or the VW Amarok (at least in Europe) have now been taken from the market and models such as the Nissan Navara, the Mitsubishi L200 or an Isuzu D-Max are currently still available for purchase.
The new generation of the Ford Ranger, developed in Australia in particular, will be available to customers in mid-2022 and there should be a brother at the end of the year. The sister model comes from Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles and will again bear the name Amarok on the large tailgate. Until it was discontinued in Europe, the VW Amarok was manufactured in the Hanover plant and in Pacheco, Argentina. The next generation should be a real Volkswagen, which should be difficult in view of the technical relationship to the new Ford Ranger. At least when it comes to design, there will be real VW genes. “The striking front and, above all, the memorable X-Design clearly emphasize the new Amarok and emphasize its claim to leadership,” explains VW Commercial Vehicles chief designer Albert-Johann Kirzinger, “we have given the strength and power of the new Amarok a clear expression – with clear Volkswagen DNA, inside and out. “
The upcoming Ford Ranger will roll off the assembly line in Thailand from spring 2022 and a little later in South Africa. The European versions of Ford Ranger and VW Amarok each come from the Silverton / South Africa plant. Compared to the previous model, the new Ranger chassis has a 50 millimeter longer wheelbase and a 50 millimeter wider track. The new vehicle structure in the front section creates more space under the bonnet for the use of a six-cylinder diesel engine in V-shape and subsequent electrification. According to extensive customer surveys, the new Ford Ranger starts exclusively with diesel engines. In addition to a two-liter basic diesel with four cylinders, which is optionally available as a manual or automatic version with six stages each, there is a more powerful four-cylinder twin turbo and the top model, the V6 diesel with three-liter displacement that has long been requested by customers and which is mandatory the well-known ten-speed automatic is coupled. It can be assumed that the more powerful Ranger variant will be offered with the same three-liter diesel that is also offered on request in the Ford F-150, its big brother, and has an output of 250 hp / 597 Nm. Depending on the engine variant, the new Ford Ranger is available either with a selectable all-wheel drive or, for the more powerful versions, a permanent all-wheel mode.
All of this should also apply to the upcoming VW Amarok, which was recently only offered with a 272 hp V6 diesel, or will continue to be offered in the southern hemisphere made by Argentina. Now that Volkswagen is also increasingly relying on gasoline engines and plug-in hybrids for its new T7 transporter, it can be assumed that the Hanoverians will not only present their next Amarok generation with high-torque compression-ignition engines. “The Amarok enables what at first glance seems impossible in some places: It makes life easy for its users by supporting them in their work and in everyday life,” says Lars Krause, Brand Board Member for Sales and Marketing at VW Commercial Vehicles, “because the Amarok offers solutions that enable our customers to achieve their goals – especially when things get difficult. “
Source From: Stern
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