You'll have heard about the tactic of joining those you cannot beat, but what about, for want of a better word, becoming them?
It isn’t something that’s obvious at a glance; but this is the approach that has been taken for the second-generation Volkswagen Amarok pick-up truck, which is not only larger, more capable and plusher than the homely original, but also entirely different in terms of DNA.
A little history: when the first-generation Volkswagen Amarok launched in 2010, it did so with an in-house body-on-frame construction and a range of VW's proprietary powertrains, of which the beefcake 3.0-litre V6 TDI was unsurprisingly the most popular. It had easier drivability and a more hospitable cabin than its rivals, and it sold well, especially considering its maker had no prior experience of building mass-market pick-ups/bakkies/utes around the world. However, volumes weren’t quite high enough to ensure that a successor would follow. The figures illustrate this. In a good year VW would shift around 90,000 Amaroks. Ford, on the other hand, has averaged 350,000 or so units of the Ford Ranger, which sells particularly well in the UK.
In this age of colossal and unexpected automotive industrial partnerships, if you’ve already worked out where this is going, well done. If not, you quickly would, were you given some time to poke around the squared-off, brutish new Mk2 Amarok, which goes on sale early next year. Climb aboard and you’d notice that the massive portrait-oriented infotainment screen isn’t something VW has ever deployed anywhere else, and the style of gear selector and door handles are equally unfamiliar. And then, with a bit more digging – opening up the bonnet, nerdishly inspecting the windscreen scrawl, turning over some fittings – there it is in writing: FoMoCo.