Volkswagen Reveals All-New Pickup To Be Named Amarok

VOLKSWAGEN CAUSED a bit of a stir when it unveiled the masculine-looking Pickup Concept (pictured) last year, and for good reason.

The first of its kind from a European manufacturer, the Pickup represented a new direction for the company and showed that, on paper at least, VW could make a product capable of mixing it with the best utilities from Japan and the USA.

And now that product has a name. Volkswagen revealed today that its pickup will go to market wearing the 'Amarok' badge, a word that means "Wolf" in Inuit and "he loves stones" in some South American languages. We're not so sure about the last one, but we can certainly dig Wolf.

The Amarok will make its debut in the fourth quarter of this year, with its first market launch to take place in South America and Central America in early 2010.

The European market will follow midway through next year, while Africa and Australia will being receiving their Amaroks in the second half of 2010.

It's the first truly clean-slate design from VW in a long time, and the Amarok is built to be as tough as it name suggests. To be assembled at VW's Argentinean plant, the Amarok will be available at launch as a 4x4 dual-cab. A single-cab version is planned to surface later.

High-efficiency turbodiesels will be the engines of choice, however exactly which engines will be chosen isn't immediately apparent.

At this stage it's unclear whether a 2x4 RWD version will be offered, but given the Amarok is designed to go head-to-head against the most popular one-tonners from Japan, it's likely such a configuration will become available.