2023 Volkswagen Amarok muscles-up ahead of launch! Turbo-diesel V6 and unique design elements coming for 2022 Ford Ranger twin and new Toyota HiLux rival

Volkswagen’s seemingly never-ending teaser campaign for the second-generation Amarok continued last week with the release of “near-production” exterior design sketches, and now unofficial renderings based on them have given us our best look yet at the new ute.

Kolesa has published two artist’s impressions of the upcoming Amarok, which unsurprisingly has a lot in common with its twin, the already-revealed ‘T6.2’ Ford Ranger – yep, both next-generation utes were designed and engineered in Australia.

Speaking of design, as promised, the Amarok separates itself from the Ranger with several unique elements, starting with its front fascia, which notably has angular headlights that are directly connected by the grille bars.

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From the side, it’s easy to see the commonality between the Amarok and Ranger, with the doors and glasshouse shared, although the former does get more pronounced, squared-off wheelarches.

At the rear, the Amarok continues to stand apart with bespoke tail-lights with a C-shaped signature, as well as a relatively flat tailgate with the obligatory Volkswagen badge and debossed AMAROK lettering.

Previous official interior design sketches indicated it will be a similar story inside, with the Amarok to borrow the Ranger’s vertical 12.0-inch central touchscreen and 12.4-inch digital instrument cluster, but with its own dashboard, centre stack and console, steering wheel and seats.

Critically, in January, Volkswagen confirmed the latest Amarok would be headlined by a yet-to-be-detailed “V6 TDI” engine, which is German for a turbo-diesel bent six.

Despite the in-house branding, the unit in question should be the Ranger’s fresh 3.0-litre Power Stroke unit, which should produce about 190kW of power and 600Nm of torque, outputs that should satisfy current Amarok V6 fans. Permanent all-wheel drive is also on the menu.

Other turbo-diesel engines will also be part of the Amarok line-up, with the Ranger’s updated 2.0-litre EcoBlue twin-turbo diesel four-cylinder unit expected, potentially alongside its new single-turbo version, with rear-wheel-drive and part-time four-wheel-drive availability.

Either way, we’ll know more about the Amarok soon, as it will be revealed later this year ahead of an Australian launch sometime in 2023. Stay tuned.