Strange bedfellows by Ryan Bubear

In the next few years, Ford will start building bakkies for VW. How will South African buyers react?

MIDWAY through 2018, Ford and VW revealed they were exploring a strategic alliance to boost each firm’s competitiveness. Six months and a flurry of rumours later, two of the world’s largest carmakers confirmed their freshly inked deal in Detroit, sending a shot echoing across the bow of a fast-changing automotive industry.

While a proposed collaboration on electric and autonomous vehicles is likely what prompted rivals to really sit up and take notice, the most intriguing part of the wider agreement from a local standpoint is the news the Blue Oval brand will “engineer and build” bakkies for both companies. This, of course, all but confirms the replacement for the ageing Amarok will run on Ford’s next-generation Ranger platform, with a market introduction pencilled in for 2022. Interesting development, right?

On the surface (and from a global perspective), it appears an astute move from Volkswagen. After all, Ford knows a thing or two about building bakkies, since its F-series is the bestselling pickup range in the world today. The Ranger’s not doing badly, either.

Yes, developing a second-generation Amarok from scratch would be an immensely costly exercise which Wolfsburg’s bean counters would be thrilled to allay, while merely re-engineering the by-then 12-year-old architecture would see the German bakkie quickly falling off the pace. So why not team up with the Dearborn-based automaker, leverage its obvious strengths and spread the burden of development costs? After all, platform sharing is nothing new… Fair enough. But how would buyers in general (and VW fanatics in particular) react to a Volkswagen bearing Ford underpinnings? Recent history – in South Africa, at least – suggests consumers would view such a product with a healthy dose of scepticism at best … and absolute disdain at worst.

You see, while the majority of shoppers considering small cars are apparently unperturbed by platform sharing – your average Nissan Micra buyer couldn’t give two hoots the Japanese hatchback borrows its greasy bits from the Renault Clio, for instance – those brand-loyal folks in the market for a bakkie are more sensitive to automotive marriages, unholy or otherwise.

Not convinced? Let’s look at the figures. While Ford sold 30 141 units of its Ranger in SA in 2018 (second only to the indomitable Toyota Hilux), the Mazda BT-50 wielding its underpinnings scraped together a meagre 553 registrations, or less than 2% of the Ford’s total. Sure, there are other factors at play – Mazda’s BT-50 range and dealer network aren’t nearly as extensive as Ford’s; its bakkie’s styling is downright divisive; and it claims to purposely avoid fleet buyers – but everything essentially boils down to one question: why buy a copy when you can have the original?

It’s a similar – not quite as marked but more controversial – case with the Mercedes-benz X-class (which, of course, employs Nissan architecture). While the local arm of the Stutt- gart-based firm doesn’t disclose individual model sales, its figures are undoubtedly far smaller than those achieved by the Navara, even if the latter reported a fairly modest 2 090 units last year.

That, of course, is also partly down to the weighty price premium the X-class commands over its Japanese cousin. Still, it’d be interesting to see how a keenly priced Renault Alaskan, which is likewise based on the Navara, would fare here (although I suspect it, too, would struggle). Similarly, will the next BT-50’S switch to an Isuzu platform appreciably improve its local sales? I’m unconvinced.

The pattern continues with other small local players, although here the gap isn’t quite as gaping. The Mitsubishi Triton, for example, ended 2018 on 429 units, while Fiat reported a mere 224 registrations of the closely related Fullback.

All that said, it’s worth considering what sort of volumes VW hopes to gain out of the deal. A broad answer might be to merely shift more bakkies than it does now. From a local perspective, that’d be no simple task seeing that VW sold 2 972 units of its Amarok last year, a fair number considering the bulk came in the form of V6 models and none from the single-cab sub-segment.

Of course, it’s worth reiterating this bakkie agreement is but an initial step in what could ultimately grow into a remarkably powerful partnership with far wider-reaching implications.

So, yes, we’ll see more and more of these sorts of collaborations as the industry steels itself for myriad fresh challenges. And, yes, this particular case could work in local buyers’ favour in some way should VW’S next bakkie end up being built alongside the Ranger at Ford’s plant in Pretoria. But, in SA at least, platform sharing hasn’t worked for any bakkie in recent times. So why would it work for VW?