No German automaker (premium or not) has a pickup truck for the North American market, so Volkswagen saw an opportunity here and grabbed it, sources claim.
According to undisclosed sources within the company, cited by AutoNews, the automaker will present a pickup truck concept at the 2018 New York Auto Show, which opens up on Wednesday for the press.
The vehicle won’t be the Amarok, but a third derivative of the Atlas. It will follow the five-seat SUV into production, and was “supported” by the brand’s CEO, Herbert Diess, “from a very early phase in the project”, said an insider.
Unlike the Amarok, which has a ladder-on-frame chassis, it will be underpinned by the same MQB platform as its SUV siblings. This means that it won’t go after the Ford Ranger and others, but challenge the likes of the similar Honda Ridgeline that’s based on the Pilot SUV.
While we don’t have any images yet, you can get an idea of what it could look like by this render from AscarissDesign. The as-of-yet unnamed pickup, which could be called Amarok after Volkswagen trademarked the moniker with the USPTO, is said to be produced in Chattanooga, Tennessee, alongside the regular Atlas. It’s believed that it will be aimed solely at the United States and Canada, so don’t expect to see a Teramont pickup in China.
In addition to the growing Atlas family, Volkswagen is also interested in launching a new compact crossover in the US. Such a vehicle won’t be T-Roc, which is currently sold in Europe, but a version of the ‘Powerful Family SUV‘ study that was presented in Beijing, last Friday, during the big reveal of the third-gen Touareg.
Source: VW – Carscoops
from The German Car Blog http://bit.ly/2GbmUyd
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