Ford Ranger and VW Amarok could be twinned

The next-generation Ford Ranger and Volkswagen Amarok could be twins beneath their skins – just like the Nissan Navara and Mercedes-Benz X-Class.

That’s because Ford and Volkswagen have just announced they are exploring a strategic alliance comprising several joint projects – including “joint development of a range of commercial vehicles”.

The US and German car-makers late last week announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding that aims to “better serve the evolving needs of customers globally and strengthen each company’s competitiveness”.

Ford and Volkswagen stressed that any strategic alliance would not involve equity arrangements, including cross-ownership stakes, and that both companies will “provide updates and additional details as talks progress”.

“Ford is committed to improving our fitness as a business and leveraging adaptive business models – which include working with partners to improve our effectiveness and efficiency,” said Jim Farley, Ford’s president of Global Markets.

“This potential alliance with the Volkswagen Group is another example of how we can become more fit as a business, while creating a winning global product portfolio and extending our capabilities.

“We look forward to exploring with the Volkswagen team in the days ahead how we might work together to better serve the evolving needs of commercial vehicle customers – and much more.”

Dr Thomas Sedran, Head of Volkswagen Group Strategy said: “Markets and customer demand are changing at an incredible speed. Both companies have strong and complementary positions in different commercial vehicle segments already.

“To adapt to the challenging environment, it is of utmost importance to gain flexibility through alliances. This is a core element of our Volkswagen Group Strategy 2025. The potential industrial cooperation with Ford is seen as an opportunity to improve competitiveness of both companies globally.”

Apart from cutting the development costs of new commercial vehicles for both car-makers, Ford and Volkswagen would both gain plenty by joining forces to engineer (and even manufacture) a range of vans and utes.

Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles has become a force in the worldwide van market since it was established in its own right in 1995 and Ford is a leader in the global pick-up industry.

It’s far too early to say whether joint-development of the next-generation Ranger and Amarok (or new versions of the Ford F Series pick-up and Transit van families, and the VW Caddy, Transporter and Crafter vans) will be part of the deal, but such a move would be far from unprecedented.

Indeed, history is littered with examples of joint utes and Ford and Mazda have been long-time pick-up partners. The current Ranger and BT-50 were co-developed on the Blue Oval’s Australian-designed and engineered T6 ladder frame and also share the same engines.

Ford is about to release the second major facelift for the PX Ranger since it was launched in 2011, but once again none of its new technologies will flow through to the BT-50, which will be co-developed with the next Isuzu D-MAX following the end of the Ford-Mazda deal with this generation.

While the next-generation Triton is expected to be twinned with the Navara as part of Nissan’s new equity stake in Mitsubishi, Ford had been widely tipped to go it alone with its replacement for the Ranger, which will also be built and sold in North America from 2019.

However, Ford Asia Pacific is likely to have already started development of the next-generation Ranger and Volkswagen’s first global one-tonne pick-up dates back even further than the current Ranger, to 2010.

Therefore work is also likely to have begun on the second-generation Amarok, which is expected to form the basis of a ladder-frame SUV to rival the Ford Everest, meaning co-developed Ranger and Amarok models could be up to decade away.