If you can’t beat them join them is the age-old adage and Volkswagen is finally seeing the light and doing a Mercedes X Class. That is to say, the future Amarok Pickup Truck will pretend to be a Volkswagen. You see Ford and Volkswagen are getting it together, forming a new joint alliance. Why? To cut various amounts of costs. Why? because after dieselgate, which was an unnecessary self-inflicted wound, VW needs to tighten it’s belt. The company is sitting on top of a $200bn debt pile and needs to make savings everywhere. If you had asked VW executives 5 years ago if they would ever consider a joint alliance with arch-rivals Ford then they would have laughed into their Apple Strudels in disbelief.

But times are changing, not least with the Conoravirus Pandemic, and VW needs Ford as much as Ford needs VW. Joint alliances within the automotive industry never last. Mercedes and Renault Nissan is one such Alliance. Volkswagens’ previous alliance with Suzuki, which was meant to cut costs and share assets, ended in acrimony. In short, VW used its clout and global scale to dominate the alliance.

So very much expect this Ford VW alliance to end in around five years. Will it end in acrimony or will the alliance come to a natural contractual end? That story has yet to be written. The alliance will spawn several new models in the coming years. Ford will get to use VW’s latest electric car platform and AI self-driving technology. We think Ford has the better deal here.

So VW ordered its designers to get their Wacom’s out and the combined effort revealed a concept of the next-generation Amarok. Although the release date has yet to be revealed we do know the new look Amarok will form part of a 34 new and or updated range of models.