I did a figurative spit take when I saw that Hyundai had gone totally bonkers at the NAIAS and launched a Ute concept. Of course, I knew the chances of such a vehicle entering production are about the same as the chances of Rolex announcing that they’ll make an economy line of digital watches. Still it’s a proverbial bone thrown to the same people I was referring to in my previous article on Brazilian Utes.
In the comments Hoon craigsu mentioned the Volkswagen Amarok. On paper this could be the small pickup truck that America wants.
On paper.

The Volkswagen Group is the ninth largest company on planet Earth and sold an amazing total of 5.07 million vehicles in the first six months of last year. The only company that did better was Toyota with 5.11 million vehicles in the same time. But you wouldn’t know that by looking at the U.S sales numbers.
Over the last year, only 366,970 Vee-Dubs left the showroom floor. Toyota? 2,004,373. To put that in perspective, for every car that Volkswagen sold in America, Toyota sold five thousand four hundred and sixty one. Pummeling doesn’t even come close to describing it.

Part of the trouble is that, while their lineup in the rest of the world is extremely competitive with offerings such as the Polo GTI, everything on the American Lineup that isn’t a Golf with either “GTI” or “R” in it somewhere seems a bit…lacking. The Jetta went from being a premium Golf with a trunk to becoming this cheap decontented model to chase after the Corolla buyers that don’t bother checking other manufacturer’s offerings and just want to replace an old Corolla with a slightly newer Corolla. The Passat is a model designed specifically for the North American market which is…worse. The Touareg is just simply mediocre. There’s the Beetle, but the new new Beetle looked like they asked a guy in accounting to design them, so they’re inoffensive enough to not cause a negative reaction from anyone and therefore, not able to cause a positive reaction either.

Another problem is reliability. I’m not quite sure what happens but for some reason modern Volkswagens seem to be eager to disintegrate on American soil, regardless of model or where they are produced. And before the guy with the 250,000 mile Mk.III Jetta comes along and tells me how he has only had to replace every part on the engine once to keep it on the road (which is admittedly better than what you have to do to keep a First-gen Land Rover Freelander on the road) consider the following: Although Volkswagen has decided to move from a premium image and begun chasing the cheap-appliance crowd on the quest for more sales numbers, that attitude has yet to be reflected on servicing costs.

But the biggest hurdle Volkswagen would’d have to overcome in the market is the market itself. Macho sells in the truck market. So how do you position a small truck from the same people that make the Beetle Cabriolet and that can only be had with a puny two liter engine? Speaking of which, the only gas engine available is the same 2.0 TSI that you can find on other VW products. Here producing 158 HP, or about the same as the 2.7-liter engine you find on the Toyota Tacoma, but the Tacoma’s engine is better because it’s bigger. Or so it goes in marketing-land. Diesel? Of course, you can have them in single and twin-turbo guise with 138 or 177HP respectively. That actually seems worth paying for, which is a good thing, because you will pay a lot.

The base, single cab Amarok costs the equivalent of $24,938 in its native Germany. Only a thousand dollars less than the Base Ford F150 XL. Go a little crazy with the options and you can easily find yourself standing on the wrong side of $35,000. So with the lack of bigger engines, the price tag and the destructowagen force field that surrounds America, it’d be doomed to be a niche vehicle at best.
Certainly not what VW needs right now.
[Image Sources: Autobild.de/VW Media/Ford Media/Crankandpiston.com]