Volkswagen Pickup Concept at MIMS

For the first time even in Australia, Volkswagen is presenting its all new Pickup at the 2009 Melbourne International Motor Show.

Having already debuted at the 2008 International Automobile Exhibition in Hanover, Germany. The Pickup, previously referred to as the Robust, will bring a new choice into the market.

With the introduction of the Pickup, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles will be the first volume manufacturer in Europe to enter the 1-tonne Pickup segment.

Apart from the big markets such as South America, the German company also sees South Africa, Australia and South East Asia as being important markets for the Ute.

Volkswagen predicts overall sales projections for the new Pickup to be around 100,000 units per year.

“The Volkswagen Pickup will certainly be a welcome and exciting fourth addition to our expanding range of light commercial vehicles,” commented Phil Clark, Director of Volkswagen Group Australia Commercial Vehicles.

“Being the only premium European offering a product in the 1 tonne segment is a great opportunity for Volkswagen. I believe the Pickup will be one of the best selling models in the Volkswagen line-up.”

Due to the intensive discussions with emergency services and in-house specialists for emergency
vehicles, the concept was designed as a “Search and Rescue” vehicle (SAR).

The 5.18 meter long concept vehicle is built from the ground up by VW and is not based on any familiar model series.

Although it does share some components, such as the same time fuel-saving common-rail turbo-diesels (TDI) engines.

Volkswagen says the Pickup follows the company’s Design-DNA initially presented by the Volkswagen passenger car division in the form of the Scirocco and the new Golf.

Some new interesting features include the ability to feed localisation location of a search call at the operations centre. The GPS data of the position are fed into the Pickup’s navigation system.

Besides display of a map and pictograms, satellite images of the terrain can also be displayed. On the level below this are buttons for adjustments to the chassis and all-wheel drive (e.g. differential locks).

Thanks to off-road-navigation, the lifeguards can reach the emergency location extremely quickly. A compass is also mounted in the upper instrument panel area for general use.