Next-generation Volkswagen Amarok will feature “a lot” of Australian influence
With growing sales of the Volkswagen Amarok propelling the company's local arm to second in the global Amarok sales stakes, it has been revealed that Australia will play a big role in development of the next-generation model.
We sat down with Volkswagen Australia director of commercial vehicles, Carlos Santos during the recent Cape York trek to find out more about the next generation of Volkswagen Amarok.
Santos told CarAdvice that Volkswagen Australia's unique position within the commercial vehicles sales race globally means that the company's local arm can influence decisions on the new Amarok.
"We have a lot of [influence within the Volkswagen Group], especially recently with the introduction of the automatic Amarok. Our sales have really increased quite a lot, putting us now as the second largest export market in the world for Amarok, which is quite big."
"They do listen to us quite a lot, which is great. Both in terms of product spec and what we need for the market and, even down to the advertising concepts that they use and share around the world now."
The next-generation Amarok is expected to be unveiled closer to 2020 and, according to Santos, a development team is heading to Australia to discuss our requirements for the next model.
"There's talk of teams that are en route, more or less, to Australia now to talk about next model and next generation Amarok and looking into Australian conditions and that sort of thing. Definitely Euro 5 and Euro 6 will be one of the main concerns. Especially now that Australia doesn't have a definite timeline for Euro 6 introduction."
"As you know, our models to be sold in Europe from 2017 will have to be Euro 6 compliant. That's going to be a challenge moving forward. In saying that, the South American markets, which are the biggest markets for Amarok are all Euro 4 and Euro 5, so they still will build engines for Euro 5 specifications."
It's an exciting time for commercial vehicle buyers in Australia. The commercial ute segment in particular is now overflowing with fresh choice from a number of manufacturers, with more stepping up their efforts to take on the burgeoning segment.
If you could add your two cents to the Amarok development discussion, what would you like to see?
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