Volkswagen Amarok vs LDV Deliver 9

What's the difference?

This is a very important ute if you’re Volkswagen Australia.

A lot of time and money has gone into making sure this, the 2026 VW Amarok W600 as engineered by Walkinshaw, is the ultimate driver’s ute. Not the best 4X4, but the best ute on the road. Sounds like an odd task, right?

It might be, but a couple of thousand people bought the last version of this ute, so why not try to make it better?

Over a long development period and a steady build-up, including previews at the former Holden proving ground at Lang Lang, Volkswagen has teased its ‘ultimate driver’s ute’.

Now, we get to put the production version to the test on the very roads that helped shape it during its development in Tasmania.

There are currently 14 rivals competing for customers in the Light Duty or LD (3501-8000kg GVM) segment of Australia’s heavy commercial vehicle market. Business buyers and fleet operators are thick on the ground here and competition for their business is fierce.

Chinese brand LDV, a division of the huge SAIC Motor conglomerate which is now the seventh largest automotive company in the world, recently joined this battle with its new Deliver 9 van range that’s priced to entice. We spent a week aboard one to see how LDV’s claim of superior value stacks up when there’s work to be done.