Pache.co Information Technologies

Until now only seen in a series of sketches, Volkswagen has officially showcased the second generation Amarok in pre-production form ahead of its world debut later this year.

While still decked-out in comparatively thin layers of black-and-white masking, the Amarok, unsurprisingly, bears a resemblance to its Ford Ranger sibling, but as per comments made two years ago by Wolfsburg’s Commercial Vehicles Head of Design, Albert-Johann Kirzinger, a number of visual differences are indeed present.

As indicated by the series of teaser first released in 2020, followed by a pair last year and two this year, the Amarok boasts standard LED or optional Matrix I.Q LED headlights seemingly identical in design to the current model, a model specific bonnet, new front wings, outer door skins and an X-motif facia.

At the rear, the taillights are said to be unique, with the same applying to the Amarok stamped tailgate and the option of up to 21-inch alloy wheels the Ranger doesn’t offer.

Although Volkswagen didn’t disclose any images or details of the interior, a teaser sketch released in December last year showed the same dashboard as the Ranger, but with a Volkswagen specific steering wheel, a redesigned gear lever and apparent absence of the portrait-style twelve-inch touchscreen infotainment system.

“We’ve given the strength and power of the new Amarok an unambiguous expression–with clear Volkswagen DNA, inside and out,” Kirzinger said at the time.

ALSO READ: Coincidence? Spy shot debut for new Volkswagen Amarok

In addition to the reveal of the prototype, Volkswagen confirmed that several modifications at its behest had gone into the structure of the Amarok, as well as the Ranger, given that both, together with the new Everest, are based on the heavily revised T6 platform, now known as T6.2.

“The new Amarok is a much better pick-up than if Volkswagen had done it alone. The same goes for Ford: without our input, the new Ranger wouldn’t be so good,” Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles Marketing Head, Lars Krause, was quoted as saying by Britain’s Autocar.

“The partnership has allowed us to pool our individual strengths. Beyond the business side of things, the product has benefited greatly”.

Having confirmed last week that the Amarok, which will be built alongside the Ranger and Everest at Ford’s Silverton Plant outside Pretoria instead of the General Pacheco facility in Argentina, will once again be sold only as a double cab with the select market set to receive the returning single cab, Volkswagen also revealed the following:

• an unchanged towing capacity of 3 500 kg;
• payload uptake of 350 kg to 1 200 kg depending on the model;
• four initial trim levels; Life, Style, PanAmerican (off-road-focused) and Aventura (upscale lifestyle similar to the outgoing Extreme);
• overall length of 5 350 mm (+96 mm)
• wheelbase of 3 270 mm (+175 mm)
• height of 1 880 mm (+ two millimetres);
• width of 1 910 mm (-34 mm)

Underneath the bonnet, the Amarok will drop the current model’s Volkswagen engines for units made by the Blue Oval, which for South Africa will be made at the Straundale Engine Plant in Nelson Mandela Bay following Dearborn’s R600-million investment last year.

While certain European markets will get a petrol engine in the shape of the 2.3 EcoBoost the current North American Ranger makes do, the choice of turbodiesel engines will mirror those of the Ranger, which at the bottom end consists of the 2.0 Panther that produces 110kW/350Nm and 125kW/405Nm in single-turbo form, and 155kW/500Nm in bi-turbo guise.

Although a six-speed manual comes as standard on the single turbo derivatives, the Amarok is anticipated to be offered solely with the General Motors co-developed ten-speed automatic gearbox, which the bi-turbo has as standard.

It, therefore, means that the ‘box replaces the eight-speed Tiptronic that has done duty on all but the entry-level model until now.

At the same time, Volkswagen further stated that two all-paw gripping systems will be offered; a conventional part-time four-wheel-drive and a permanent all-wheel-drive with rear-wheel-drive being standard.

The biggest change is however the reserved for the flagship Amarok V6, which eschews the 190kW/580Nm 3.0 TDI for the Ford-made 184kW/600Nm 3.0 V6 sold until last year under the Powerstroke moniker in the F-150.

Despite Ford having admitted to working on a hybrid Ranger, an electrified Amarok won’t be materialising anytime soon, with the same, for now, is true of the much rumoured Amarok R reported last week as having been a seriously considered twin to the Ranger Raptor.

Supposedly revealing itself in July, the Amarok will make its South African market debut in the first quarter of next year and not in the final half of this year as previously reported.

Expect more details to become available over the coming weeks and months.

Additional information from drive.com.au and carexpert.com.au.

This content was originally published here.

Hindsight for Monday, May 2, 2022

NOT SO long ago, before the groundswell of popular support grew into a towering pink wave behind the presidential candidacy of Vice President Leni Robredo, it seemed like she had embarked on a quixotic quest. For a moment back there, even her running was in doubt, spurred on only by the encouragement and faith of a coalition of upright citizens seeking a way out of the darkness of the past six years. 

In front of her was ranged a phalanx of formidable and even monstrous adversaries, flush with money, dizzy with power, armed with the most sophisticated weaponry on the market—data science and mass communications in the service of disinformation. The surveys declared her candidacy dead from the get-go, her campaign futile; her ceiling was this low, and she was bumping her head against it. For her enemies, it was enough to brand her a “woman” to render her incapable: “As a woman,” said the trolls, “she cannot be trusted with the responsibilities of the presidency. She is weak, and she cannot think for herself. She will always be subject to manipulation.”

It is not difficult to find parallels in history and myth for Robredo’s crusade. The foremost image that comes to mind is that of an armor-clad Joan of Arc, riding off to battle against those who had turned their backs on France to support the English. There is a long, long list of women who took up the sword to fight for freedom and justice. In 1521, after her husband fell in combat, Maria Pacheco took charge of the defense of the Spanish city of Toledo in a popular uprising against the monarchy; later that century, Guaitipan or La Gaitana led Colombia’s indigenous people against the invading Spanish; the 17th century is replete with accounts of women going into battle dressed as a man, so they could join the armies. And of course we cannot forget our own La Generala, Gabriela Silang, who fought the Spanish after her husband Diego was assassinated in 1763.

But many if not most of these stories end with defeat and death for the heroine, as it did for Joan of Arc and Gabriela Silang. They are immolated, hung, imprisoned, abused, punished in the most horrific ways for the temerity to rise above their lot as mothers, wives, daughters, and servants. It would seem as though the lesson after all is not to rebel or resist, or otherwise be punished.

But martyr or not, the effect has only been to inspire emulation all the more. That Joan of Arc died at the stake at age 19 makes us, in our senior years, ask if we have achieved something even barely comparable—to live, and live on after death, as a symbol of resistance to tyranny.

If Leni wins on May 9, it will be a historic and hard-won triumph, but one that will be immediately fraught with danger, as she will now have to fend off a spiteful and tenacious many-headed hydra that will not slink into the shadows. Her enemies will hound her every day of her presidency, bark at every move she makes, make it extremely difficult for her to govern properly, so they can substantiate their portrayal of her alleged inefficacy.

If her adversary musters more votes, she will have lost a battle, but not the war this has become. Mind that just having celebrated her 57^th birthday, Leni Robredo will only be 63 in 2028—younger than even Marcos Jr. is today. If she loses this election, it will not be the end, but only the start of the next stage of a protracted campaign to bring us back to good and honest governance. 

Six years may seem a long time, but it doesn’t feel like it was that long ago when Rodrigo R. Duterte came to power. These past six years have been among the most difficult and dismaying we have had to endure, not only because of the pandemic but also because of an equally devastating malignancy at the heart of government—leadership by fear, terror, and impunity; the patronage and enrichment of friends; the repression of dissent; and the subornation and corruption of the uniformed and civil service. 

In another six years, should the Marcos forces now prevail and if they stay true to form, they will have unraveled and self-destructed. We will not be surprised, but their followers will be, when the promised manna never rains, when the Palace is ruled by incompetence, indecision, and intrigue, when No. 2 chafes at her humble station, when China attacks and the First Family rushes off to Paraguay with half the treasury (nothing is too absurd in politics today), when citizens cry out for simple answers to urgent questions and are told, “The President is busy,” in a dull echo of his excuses for avoiding the debates. 

But guess what—here we are; we endured, we survived, and we fight on. The ones behind us are even much younger and stronger, and more knowledgeable about the intricacies of digital and house-to-house persuasion. “Pink” is already being demonized as some mutation of the Reds and Yellows, but it will not fade away. Unless they are outlawed, or painted over by the newly reconstituted Kabataang Barangay, the “Kulay Rosas ang Bukas” murals will stay on as reminders of what could have been and could yet be. There may not be an EDSA IV—having once lost to peaceful protest, they will not hesitate to arrest and fire at the slightest signs of a new uprising—but the Internet will not be muted, nor will the mounting clamor of the disappointed poor.

The Marcos forces have waited almost forty years for this moment. What would six more years be to a resurgent opposition? We can play the long game.

And then again, we Filipinos just might surprise ourselves next Monday, and decide that the opportunity for change, for a real “moving on,” is not to be delayed but to be claimed at once. That will be sweet victory for the woman they made the mistake of calling “incapable.”