Opinion: The Volkswagen Amarok shares some bits with the Ford Ranger… so what?
With the new Volkswagen Amarok hitting dealerships, the rage against its platform-sharing with the Ford Ranger is unfounded .
The new Volkswagen Amarok has brought an annoying automotive naysayer to the fore – the platform sharing hater – or PSH as they shall henceforth be known. You know the ones. “It’s just a Ford Ranger anyway!” That’s them. Pretty easy to spot on any given forum.
Let’s, to the first point, put forward the fact that without a platform-sharing arrangement, there would be no Volkswagen Amarok. See the irony? If VW hadn’t engaged in the heinous act of platform-sharing, the PSH wouldn’t have platform-sharing to rail about. It’s delicious isn’t it…
Given the fact the Amarok found a niche market in Australia (in global terms), a conglomerate the size of Volkswagen could never have justified the immense investment (both financially and in terms of people) required to design and engineer a bespoke platform. And don’t bother with the ‘keep using the old Amarok’ argument. It was already feeling well past its use-by-date in regard to safety and technology, and all-new platforms from other manufacturers would have left it in the shade.
The reality was that if VW wanted to keep selling the Amarok in our market, it needed a new platform. And when searching for a new platform, what better place to start than with an all-new vehicle that looked likely to head the segment, taking over from a previous model that had stayed atop the dual-cab category for years.
We gave Mazda a decent kick over the course of the last BT-50’s long model run for not updating its dual-cab with the same frequency and vigour as Ford did the base vehicle. As a result, the Mazda suffered and started to feel pretty old pretty quickly. The Ranger, on the other hand, powered on. It’s a salient lesson for Volkswagen.
Further, the new BT-50 – now a D-Max under the skin – is hardly a bad dual-cab because it’s not a Mazda-developed platform. Quite the contrary. Where we’ve taken issue with Mazda regarding the new BT-50, is the brand hasn’t injected as much Mazda DNA into it as we would have liked. Does that make it bad? No. Not at all. We’d have liked the cabin to be more Mazda-like than it is, but that doesn’t make it a bad dual-cab.
If you’re out there mouthing off at a Mazda owner because his dual-cab is, ‘just an Isuzu anyway’, who had the last laugh if there was a nine to 12-month wait on the Isuzu, and you could wander straight into a Mazda dealer and roll out in a brand-new BT-50? The Mazda driver, I reckon.
Whether the new Amarok is VW-like enough is probably something we need to hear from current Amarok owners. After all, they will be the buyers VW needs to convince to sign on the dotted line for the new model. I tend to think, that in many crucial areas, the new Amarok does in fact feel like a VW. In some areas it doesn’t, but if you’ve bought one, let us know what you think.
Platform sharing is an unavoidable reality of modern motoring, probably even more once we move to the inexorable electric sunrise. VW has been doing it for a long time, a point its design and engineering team was keen to emphasise at launch. A VW is a Skoda, is an Audi, is a Porsche, is a Bentley, is a Lamborghini. Is the Bentayga driver concerned that, ‘it’s just an Audi’? Is the Lamborghini driver concerned, ‘it’s just a Porsche’? Unlikely.
Fiat 500X and Jeep Renegade, Renault Koleos and Nissan X-Trail, Toyota GR86 and Subaru BRZ, Toyota Supra and BMW Z4, Audi TT and VW Golf. The list goes on. And on. And is likely to keep growing as it gets more expensive to keep ICE vehicles alive or develop all-new EVs.
GM already has an EV platform designed to suit different segments, and capable of having multiple battery packs stacked into it to work with different applications. It’s the way of the future. Will a Hummer EV driver even know the platform is the same under a Cadillac? Or under a Chevrolet? Most likely not and it will make no difference to their enjoyment.
It is, of course, more common for platforms to be shared within a merged entity or larger group, like Stellantis or Volkswagen. But that doesn’t mean the concept can’t work when the platform is outsourced. You could argue that dual cabs are where it’s been as effective as anywhere else. Mazda and Ford, Holden and Isuzu. Long running success stories in terms of sales.
The flip side is when it doesn’t work. Mercedes-Benz knows how hard platform sharing can be. Remember the X-Class? No? Don’t worry, most people don’t and it’s why it’s no longer on sale in Australia. That failure could of course be more a reflection that people don’t want a Mercedes-Benz dual-cab in large enough numbers than anything to do with the Navara platform beneath though.
What this discussion comes back to though, is the futility of trying to prosecute the argument that the Amarok is no good because it’s a Ford. The Ranger is a very accomplished 4WD in every form across the range and even if you hate Ford, you’re going to have to accept that. As such, any dual-cab that is based on it, is also going to be good unless the manufacturer does something really dumb.
Volkswagen tends not to take good cars and make them worse. Look at the Golf. Every new model, subtly tweaked, modified, enhanced and improved, is a step forward from the one it replaces. We’re looking forward to more in-depth testing with the Amarok over the coming months, but on paper, and post-launch, the PSH look to be wide of the mark.
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