2023 Volkswagen Amarok to be revealed on July 7

Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles has announced the global reveal for its all-new Amarok one-tonne ute will be on July 7.

The second-generation model will be the first product of a collaboration with Ford as the new Volkswagen Amarok will share its platform with the next-generation Ford Ranger ute.

While the Ranger goes on sale in Australia from mid-June 2022, the Amarok is not expected to arrive in showrooms until early 2023.

Volkswagen has previously released design sketches and "spy shots" of the new ute which a company insider tells us are very close to the actual vehicle and show how much the body is differentiated from its Ford sibling.

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VW says it had a team of 20 designers and engineers working alongside Ford’s T6 team in the development of the new Amarok and Ranger in Australia, ensuring its ute will have its own identity.

The new Amarok is expected to go on sale in 2023 with offerings in double and single-cab variants, with two and four-wheel drive models across five trim specifications.

The new Amarok is expected to mirror the Ranger in terms of powerplants, with Ford's diesel inline four cylinder and V6 diesel engines offered in Australia, although there could also be the option of a petrol-fuelled model.

While the Australian-delivered Ford Rangers come from the Ford plants in Thailand – where most of our mid-size utes are built – the Amarok will come from a recently refitted factory in South Africa.

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Australia has been the biggest market for Amarok worldwide with 84,438 units sold here since its launch back in 2011. Of those 32,442 units have been the Amarok V6 models, which, aside from the brief appearance of the Mercedes-Benz X-Class V6, has been the only V6 diesel ute in this class.

While those sales numbers sound good for VW, they are hardly up there in terms of the overall mid-size ute segment, falling well behind the leading Toyota HiLux and Ford Ranger, as well as others such as the Mitsubishi Triton, Isuzu D-Max, Nissan Navara and even the now departed Holden Colorado.

It has been reported that, if not for the partnership with Ford, Volkswagen would not have developed a new Amarok on its own.

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While we’ll get to see it in July, the ute can’t come soon enough for VW Australia.

At the launch of the new W580X model co-developed with Walkinshaw Performance, VW told 4x4 Australia it will come close to running out of stock of the current version before the end of 2022.

Speaking of Walkinshaw, both companies say they hope their collaborations will continue with the new Amarok – although there was nothing they could confirm yet.

While Ford has revealed its Ranger Raptor hot-rod will go on sale here in July, Blue Oval officials also said this platform variant was not made available to its partners at Volkswagen as the Raptor is exclusively a Ford Performance product.

This leaves the door open for a company such as Walkinshaw to work with VW to develop improved performance versions of the Amarok to compete with the likes of the Ranger Raptor and Nissan Navara PRO-4X Warrior.

2023 will be a big year for VW Commercial vehicles, and we’ll know more about what to expect when we see the new Amarok on July 7.