Volkswagen is closely monitoring the success of General Motor’s new mid-size pickup truck offerings, the GMC Canyon and Chevrolet Colorado, to see if it might be worth it for the automaker to re-enter the North American pickup truck market, a segment it hasn’t occupied since the 1980s.
VW first introduced the Amarok pickup in 2009. Before the models official release, there was some speculation that VW might make it available in the United States, the biggest and most competitive pickup truck market in the world. But with American automakers choosing to pull out of the mid-size truck segment, VW figured it wouldn’t be such a good idea to offer the Amarok stateside.
However amidst record-high gas prices, the mid-size segment is now ramping back up and VW is once again toying with the idea of offering a pickup truck in the US.
“It’s a question mark, but it starts to be discussed. Let’s put it this way: we start to discuss it again and whether it’s attractive for us,” VW North America CEO Michael Horn told Autoblog at the Geneva Motor Show.
However VW added it would not offer the Amarok stateside if they followed through on the plans. “The Amarok is too small for the US,” said Dr. Heinz-Jakob Neusser, head of VW powertrain development . “We are just reworking our truck strategy, and this is part of thinking about it. But the Amarok fits not very well to the efforts of the market.”
So while the Amarok will never be brought to the US, VW could have another, larger offering up its sleeve. That, or they will design the next-generation Amarok with the US market in mind. Either way, it appears VW is simply toying with the idea and haven’t made anything official as of yet.
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