2012 Volkswagen Amarok TDI420 Auto Launch Review
VW AMAROK AUTO REVIEW
VW Amarok TDI420 eight-speed auto: $45,990
VW Amarok Highline TDI420 eight-speed auto: $53,990
Power/torque: 132kW/420Nm
Towing capacity: 3.0 tonne
Downball capacity: 300kg
Fuel consuption: (listed) 8.3 l/100km
Fuel consumption: (on test - highway and gravel) 9.7 l/100km | (off road - heavy climbs, mud and sand) 11.8 l/100km
We set out from Port Augusta to Hawker, headed deep into the Flinders Ranges, then looped back across the highway to the low country east of Lake Torrens.
The route had us nosing through plunging washouts, took us high into the Flinders escarpaments, then led us along muddy trails turned into thick glue-pots before ending in the soft red sand of Nilpena Station (site of the famous Ediacaran fossil field).
Our ride was the new Amarok eight-speed automatic 4Motion.
Most were twin-turbo TDI420 dual cabs - there were just two single cabs - and with the assembled rabbits of the Australian motoring press at the wheels of each.
With rain and thick fog shrouding the summits, shards of shale and sump-puncturing basalt outcrops lying in wait for the unwary, with red dust rapidly turning to sticky glue, and with an unknown quantity below us - that new eight-speed auto - it had "disaster in waiting" written all over it.
We need not have worried.
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