The new Volkswagen Amarok will launch in Australia late in November, with VW promising power and torque hikes via ‘overboost’.
THE MERCEDES-BENZ X-Class was revealed yesterday with the German car maker saying its Nissan NP300 Navara-based ute would be the only premium ute on-sale. Locally, Volkswagen has responded with VW commercial vehicles boss Carlos Santos saying: “The Amarok V6 is not an over-hyped concept or a badge engineering exercise,” Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles Director Carlos Santos said.
“It’s real, it’s almost here and it brings the world’s best V6 turbo diesel, the same unit used by Porsche and Audi in luxury SUVs.”
The statement from Volkswagen went on to discuss the overboost function of the 3.0-litre V6 turbo-diesel, which is the same engine Audi runs in the Q7 we tested recently. Standard power and torque is 165kW and 550Nm with overboost (lasting for 10 seconds) pushing this to 180kW and 580Nm.
Overboost is activated when the accelerator is pushed beyond 70% of its travel and is delivered in either third- or fourth-gear. Overboost requires a five second ‘rest’ before being reactivated.
The Amarok will go on-sale on 24 November and Practical Motoring is attending the local launch. Volkswagen claims it’s received 6000 customer inquiries.
And the fight begins.
Round 1-Volkswagen.
This V6 has overboost for more power. Great! Oh what? Hang on? This overboost is not part of the emissions and fuel economy testing? Oh VW, you dirty dirty dog!