Wondering whether the upcoming new Volkswagen Amarok range will be topped by a Ranger Raptor-based flagship? Well, a Ford engineer says it’s not part of the deal…
Unless you’ve been living under a rather sizeable rock for some time, you’ll know the second-generation Volkswagen Amarok will be based on the new Ford Ranger and likewise built here in South Africa. But will the German firm’s new bakkie range include a Raptor-based performance model?
Ian Foston, T6 chief platform engineer, suggested to Drive the Raptor is entirely off the table.
“The deal was for a mid-size pick-up programme. The new Amarok is a fully differentiated sibling vehicle, however the arrangement is for the core models. Raptor for us is considered a separate sub-segment, and it’s not included in the sharing deal,” Foston told the Australian publication.
That would suggest the Blue Oval brand’s twin-turbocharged 3.0-litre V6 EcoBoost petrol engine, which makes a whopping 292 kW and 583 Nm in the new Ranger Raptor, won’t find its way into the upcoming Amarok.
So, if VW has any intention of creating a high-performance version of its new Ranger-based bakkie (Amarok R, anyone?), it’ll seemingly have to develop such a machine without relying on the American automaker’s assortment of bespoke Raptor parts.
However, we do expect the latest version of Ford’s 3.0-litre V6 turbodiesel – which makes 184 kW and 600 Nm in certain derivatives of the new Ranger and likewise box-fresh Everest (which seemingly also won’t receive the Raptor treatment) – to be offered in the as-yet-unrevealed Amarok. This six-cylinder oil-burner would form a useful base for the Wolfsburg-based automaker to exploit should it wish to differentiate a high-performance Amarok from the petrol-powered Raptor.
The outgoing Amarok, of course, is available with the VW Group’s burly V6 turbodiesel unit, which generates a heady 190 kW and 580 Nm (with 200 kW on overboost). The new model will be revealed later in 2022 before production kicks off at Ford’s assembly plant in Silverton.
