Volkswagen has admitted that had it not partnered with Ford to spin the next-generation Amarok off the Ranger platform it would have died.
The Volkswagen Amarok has been around for more than a decade but Volkswagen has admitted that if it hadnāt signed an agreement with Ford, the Amarok would have been dropped.
Earlier this week, Ford and Volkswagen issued a joint statement confirming the brands will be collaborating on the development of new vehicles on each otherās platforms. But in another statement, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles chairman Thomas Sedran revealed VWās involvement with Ford had saved the Amarok.
āUltimately it is our customers who will benefit, as without the cooperation [with Ford] we would not have developed a new Amarok,ā he said.
Both the new Amarok and Ford Ranger will be built at Fordās Silverton plant in South Africa with VW confirming the Amarok would be out in 2022. Itās expected the Ranger will be released first.
Platform sharing is nothing new, indeed the current Ford Ranger and Mazda BT-50 are twins under the skin and, going forward both the new Isuzu D-Max and Mazda BT-50 will become twins.
According to Sedran,āThrough custom designs and interfaces we will clearly differentiate the two models. For us as Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, our sights with the Amarok successor are on our main markets, above all in the EMEA economic area [Europe, Middle East and Africa].
āWhat is important for both partners is the utilisation of the same platform. At the same time we will both be able to fully deploy our strengths,ā he concluded.
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