Sao Paulo show: VW teases baby pick-up

VOLKSWAGEN has left the door ajar for potential exports of its upcoming Brazilian-made small pick-up that will be unveiled in near-production concept form at the Sao Paulo motor show on November 6.

 

The four-door crew-cab ute – based on VW’s ubiquitous MQB front-wheel-drive platform that underpins the Golf and Tiguan, among others – has been confirmed for the Brazilian market “in the foreseeable future”.

 

The company added that the new sub-Amarok pick-up’s potential was so great that “the vehicle concept could conceivably be suitable for other regions”.

 

VW’s press release made no mention of right-hand drive, but neither did it definitively rule it out.

 

Volkswagen Group Australia general manager of corporate communications Paul Pottinger told GoAuto: “Cute as this (the new pick-up) appears, there’s no notion of Australian availability as yet.”

 

The German company describes the pick-up as a cross between an SUV and a pick-up, creating a new class of urban vehicle.

 

“One of the especially noteworthy innovations of this concept is the multi-variable loading area,” it said in the release accompanying a sketch of the vehicle. “In just a couple of simple steps, it can be significantly extended thanks to the folding rear panel of the double cab”.

 

Volkswagen has become the third European manufacturer to announce production of a small pick-up in Brazil.  Renault’s Dacia sub-brand makes the dual-cab Duster Oroch in South America’s biggest country, while Fiat produces the Fiat Toro that is based on the Fiat 500/Jeep Renegade architecture.

 

The Oroch is being eyed for the Australian market where it would sit below the upcoming Navara-based Alaskan, but Renault Australia managing director Andrew Moore said a right-hand-drive version would not be available until 2021 at the earliest.

 

VW has been down the compact pick-up route before, producing the Golf-based Caddy ute in overseas markets between 1979 and 1996. Called Rabbit Pickup in North America, the budget ute was made in the US, Yugoslavia, South Africa and Argentina.

 

However, it was not imported into Australia where Subaru’s Brumby effectively had the market segment to itself.

 

Like the Brumby, Caddy and new wave of Brazilian utes, the VW compact pick-up will be a car-style monocoque construction instead of the truck-like body on frame of most one-tonne utes.

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