Volkswagen has a long history with pickups
Debut of the Atlas Tanoak is the latest in a series of trucks by the German brand
For once, the rumours swirling around the internet were 100 per cent accurate: Volkswagen introduced a pickup truck at the New York Auto Show.
Named Atlas Tanoak, the lifestyle-oriented, Honda Ridgeline-baiting design study explores one of the routes the German brand could take as it adds more light trucks to its North American lineup. It also channels one of the lesser known facets of Volkswagen’s heritage.
The single- and double-cab truck variants of the emblematic VW Bus zigzagged across the globe for decades before Volkswagen gave the pickup segment a serious look. Early on, brand officials wisely concluded trying to take down giants such as the Ford F-150 and the Chevrolet C/K Series would place Volkswagen on the gruesome path to automotive suicide. It would have been like replacing doughnuts with germknödel in 7-11 stores. Instead, they decided to surf the small-truck wave sweeping across the United States and Canada by launching a city-friendly, Rabbit-derived model appropriately named Rabbit Pickup.
Production for the North American market began in 1978 in the Westmoreland, Pa., factory Volkswagen leased from Chrysler. Engine options included a gasolinepowered 1.7-litre four-cylinder and an ultraefficient 1.5-L diesel engine. The Rabbit Pickup generated mixed reactions from buyers; motorists either loved or hated its compact dimensions.
American production ended in 1984 and the model died without a direct successor. Volkswagen shuttered its Westmoreland factory four years later. It shipped some of the tooling to South Africa, where production of the Rabbit and the Rabbit Pickup continued until 2009 and 2007, respectively.
In North America, Volkswagen threw in the towel. In Europe, it pressed forward with a little help from Toyota. The German firm struck an unlikely deal with its Japanese partner to build and sell its own version of the Hilux named Taro starting in 1989. Hardly a hit, the Taro remained part of the Volkswagen lineup until 1997. Then the company fell silent; it seemed like it had given up on pickups across the pond, too.
Volkswagen surprised the public and the press by introducing a design study named Advanced Activity Concept (AAC) at the 2000 North American International Auto Show in Detroit. This time, the truck didn’t fit the pre-conceived notion of a pickup — or of a Volkswagen, for that matter. Its tall front end proudly wore xenon lights and a chromed grille with a large Volkswagen emblem. Its extended wheelbase allowed designers to graft a set of small, rearhinged doors to facilitate the task of climbing into the back seats. .
The AAC could have been a game-changer in the segment. It didn’t take long for rumours claiming it would spawn a production model to emerge At the time, Volkswagen officials actively examined ways to expand the brand’s lineup by branching out into new segments of the market. The AAC made its debut shortly after the Concept D, which later spawned the Phaeton, and the two variants of the W12 concept.
The rumours were wide of the mark. But the AAC wasn’t immediately mothballed. Its front-end design inspired the original Touareg, which made its debut in 2002, and its V10 TDI engine reached production under the hood of the same model.
In North America, buyers who wanted a Volkswagen pickup were out of luck. In Europe, Volkswagen continued to offer pickup variants of the Transporter that traced their roots to the original rear-engined Bus. These pickups were van-based and, though highly practical, they couldn’t compete against increasingly popular models such as the Ford Ranger and the Toyota Hilux because they were largely unsuitable for everyday family-hauling duties. Volkswagen built them for construction companies, not for folks who live in the hills and occasionally haul chickens or a kayak.
It took Volkswagen several years to react. The company asked its commercial vehicles division to design a body-on-frame pickup from the ground up. Named Amarok, it made its global debut in
The single- and double-cab truck variants of the emblematic VW Bus zigzagged across the globe for decades.
2010 with a wide variety of engine and cab options. It was a true Hilux rival, one that came as a workoriented model with steel wheels, black plastic bumpers, and cloth upholstery or as a more upmarket model with alloys, colour-coded everything, and full leather.
Rumours of a North Americanspec Amarok made headlines but Volkswagen categorically ruled out sending the model across the pond. The brand nonetheless reminded us it constantly kept an eye on the segment, adding that it would pounce when and if it saw an opportunity to do so.
This brings us to the Javits Center in Manhattan this year and VW’s Atlas Tanoak concept. What remains to be seen is whether this concept will spawn a production model — cue the rumours.
It very well could. It’s built using many off-the-shelf components including the modular MQB platform and the 3.6-L V6. It’s not unreasonable to speculate the Chattanooga, Tenn., factory responsible for making the Atlas and the Passat could manufacture the pickup. If approved for production, the Atlas Tanoak would represent another step forward in Volkswagen of America’s bid to gain a greater degree of independence from the main office in Wolfsburg.