VW Amarok (Toyota Fortuner Rival) Imagined Digitally

Volkswagen’s portfolio consists of almost every type of SUV, but it lacks a proper Toyota Fortuner-rivalling mid-size model to create a stronger foothold in the Asian markets. With that in mind, our in-house digital illustrator has worked on a speculative rendering of the VW Amarok, an SUV that could turn out to be a proper Toyota Fortuner rival.

The rendered VW Amarok SUV retains the masculinity and boldness from the original pickup truck model but it features a new front-end design with a stronger road presence. The front bumper of the SUV looks more aggressive while the side profile receives more muscles with more prominent character lines, not to mention the more premium-looking alloy wheels compared to the pickup’s units.

Here's how the VW Amarok SUV might look like in our speculative rendering.

Volkswagen Amarok is a pickup truck that is targetted for the international commercial market.

Volkswagen is working on various new strategic models that are due to arrive in the coming years to gain a bigger presence in the international markets. These include the much publicized new VW Atlas for North America and the Nivus for the Latin American market. It is expected that VW would have more than 30 SUVs going on sale around the globe, which would account for half of the company’s cumulative sales. However, we do expect a tough ladder-on-frame mid-size SUV to be among them.

If it comes into production and is priced aggressively, the VW Amarok SUV could become a fierce rival of the Fortuner.

As for the new-gen VW Amarok, the SUV will be based on the ladder-frame chassis sourced from the seventh-generation Ford Ranger. Note that the same platform will spawn fourth-gen Ford Endeavour as well. Therefore, technically, it makes sense for the auto company to work on the SUV version of the Amarok. If it comes true, the Amarok SUV will help it garner a bigger share in the ASEAN markets, where demands for PPV SUVs are on the steep side. If so, the Amarok SUV can probably sit in the same manufacturing plants based in Thailand as the Ford Endeavour and Ford Everest. High level of localization would certainly keep the Amarok SUV’s cost in check.