The next-generation Ford Ranger will be the foundation of the next-generation Volkswagen Amarok as the two automakers confirm an alliance.

Late last week Ford revealed a brief outline of its strategy to improve customer focus, sustainability, growth and profitability in Europe. One of the tidbits in the outline, however, was mention of a “potential alliance” with Volkswagen on commercial vehicles. Overnight, the two brands confirmed the alliance.

Here’s what the statement from last week said, “Ford will continue to enhance its commercial vehicle leadership in Europe with a tightly integrated offering of smart vehicles, services and partnerships that deliver lifetime value for commercial customers. Already highly profitable, Ford is Europe’s No. 1 commercial vehicle brand in terms of sales volume, and more than one in four Ford vehicles sold today in Europe is a commercial vehicle.

“In line with Ford’s global fitness approach to build, partner or buy, Ford of Europe will leverage relationships – such as the successful Ford Otosan joint venture and the potential alliance with Volkswagen AG – to support its commercial vehicle growth.”

In a conference call last night, Volkswagen and Ford confirmed the two brands would be working together on the production of commercial vehicles, that the brands would remain separate entities and that they would also collaborate on autonomous vehicle technology.

What does this look like? Volkswagen will use the next-generation Ford Ranger as the base for the Amarok from as early as 2022. Details are still thin-ish on the ground but in a statement last night, Ford said: “Through the alliance, Ford will engineer and build medium-sized pickups for both companies which are expected to go to market as early as 2022. For both parties, Ford intends to engineer and build larger commercial vans for European customers, and Volkswagen intends to develop and build a city van”.

Ford will lead (is already leading) the development of the next-generation platform that will underpin both the Ranger and Amarok (it will also build the thing for VW), while Volkswagen will take the lead on developing (and building) a city-based van to take over from, we expect, the VW Caddy and Ford Transit Connect. It’s expected to be in-market from 2023.

While there’s much talk of this being about Europe, an alliance like this is a global position with the products of the alliance likely to be spread to all the markets where the current vehicles are already being sold.