2022 Volkswagen Amarok Teased For The First Time, Ford Is Involved

The Nivus small crossover wasn't the only new model teased by Volkswagen during the Annual Media Conference as a design sketch of the second-generation Amarok also made a brief appearance. The adjacent image was shown in the background when chairman Herbert Diess said the Amarok will be one of the first fruits of the collaboration between Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles and Ford.

As some of you will recall, the two companies revealed plans for a global alliance in January 2019 to collaborate on commercial vans and pickups. It means the second-generation Amarok will share many of its bits and pieces with the all-new Ranger once the midsize trucks will go on sale later this decade. Based on the announcement made by the two marques a little over a year ago, the new pickups will go on sale as early as 2022.

The design sketch previews a powerful look for the overhauled Amarok, although we're not expecting the real thing to be this aggressive. Automakers have the tendency to exaggerate many of the details when they release sketches, and we have a feeling it's the same story with this one. The truck is being shown with a bulging hood, giant wheels, chunky off-road tires, and no door handles. These are all signs of a rather eye-catching teaser than an actual production model, but it should still give us a pretty good understanding of what to expect from the actual truck.

Provided those leaked images from February 2019 were accurate, the exterior design of the Amarok's sister model has already been revealed in full. Much like the German truck, the next Ford Ranger had a bold front fascia with the grille merging with the headlights. It took the shape of a double cab whereas the sketch released by VW appears to show the pickup only with two doors.

Beyond the Amarok-Ranger tie-up, the collaboration between the two automakers could also lead to a new Ford Transit Connect based on the recently revealed 2020 VW Caddy. The aforementioned global alliance announcement called for a Ford-badged city van developed by VW, with the Blue Oval developing larger commercial vans in exchange.