Stand by for cheaper new Volkswagen Amarok Core V6

The Volkswagen Amarok Core V6 is set to make a comeback – but it won’t make it to Australia until 2024, once the all-new 4x4 dual-cab ute has settled into the market.

V6 versions of the new Volkswagen Amarok will initially come at a price premium because they’ll only initially be offered on more highly-specified model variants – Style, PanAmericana and Aventura – when the second-generation Volkswagen ute arrives in dealerships in April 2023.

But the German brand wants to protect its strength in the V6 ute market by spreading the 3.0-litre love wider.

“We’d love to bring the V6 into the Core,” says Volkswagen Australia’s product marketing manager for Amarok James Thompson.

“The current generation [Amarok] is 95 per cent mix of V6 and we don’t see that that’s suddenly going to change overnight.

“When we’re looking at the lower specification models [Core and Life] we’d love to bring the V6 into those.”

The new Amarok V6 has less power than the one it replaces – 184kW versus up to 200kW – as part of the switch from a Volkswagen-sourced engine to a Ford unit.

But along with the new Ford Ranger it was developed in conjunction with (the two share their platform and engines, among other components), the V6 is hot property and a class-leader in terms of outputs.

Plus torque has been boosted compared with the old Amarok, from 580Nm to 600Nm, while a 10-speed auto offers a broader spread of ratios that the eight-speed in the outgoing model.

Those outputs are well up on the 155kW/500Nm of the 2.0-litre four-cylinder twin-turbo diesel (and most four-cylinder diesel utes) that will initially be all that’s available in the Life. The Core initially makes do with a 125kW/405Nm single-turbo version of the same engine.

Like all Amaroks, the Core gets a four-door dual-cab ute body and a four-wheel drive system.

But with black bumpers, single-zone ventilation and vinyl flooring it misses out on some of the fruit of more expensive models. It also initially won’t be available with blind spot warning or rear cross traffic alert – something that should be addressed in 2024.

The Core’s appeal – something that worked well in the outgoing Amarok – is that it outgrunts any ute in its price range.

The four-cylinder Core is likely to sell for around $50,000 before on-road costs, while the V6 version should be around $60,000.

By comparison, the same engine in the most affordable Ranger V6, the XLT (which has more equipment), is priced at $62,290 plus ORCs.

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