The Volkswagen Amarok ute has been hit with its biggest sales slowdown on record in Australia, as stock shortages take hold and push out waiting times by up to nine months.
Just 245 examples of the Volkswagen Amarok were reported as sold last month – down 55 per cent compared to the tally of 546 from the same month the prior year.
The Volkswagen Amarok slump was so dramatic, it was even overtaken in the January 2022 sales race by China’s Great Wall Motors Ute.
Volkswagen dealers canvassed by Drive say waiting times for key models – such as the VW Amarok Highline 580 – now stretch to October 2022.
Drive understands Volkswagen Australia has prioritised its allocation of Walkinshaw W580 models – including the W580S road-biased edition (pictured above) and the W580X off-road edition (pictured below).
The second model in the Volkswagen Amarok W Series range – the W580X – is due in Australian showrooms in May 2022, pending any delays, and will be sold alongside the W580S.
Volkswagen Australia declined to estimate current waiting times for certain Amarok variants because production schedules out of the Argentina factory are subject to change, depending on parts supply issues.
However, in a statement to Drive, the director of commercial vehicles at Volkswagen Australia, Ryan Davies, said: “The Amarok has been a runaway, runout success. We have coming the volume we’d originally slated (for the first half of this year). But because of the restrictions now affecting most vehicle manufacturers, we won’t have the extra (volume) we’d have liked to secure.”
Volkswagen Australia will continue to sell the original German-designed and engineered Amarok model – introduced in 2011 – until early 2023, when the Ford Ranger-based model is due to arrive locally.
While the Volkswagen Amarok has enjoyed strong sales in Australia – it was the brand’s biggest-selling model locally last year as the rest of the VW range was hit with stock shortages – it did not meet global sales expectations.
Rather than vacate the booming compact ute segment, Volkswagen partnered with Ford to share engineering and development costs – to adapt its own version of the next-generation Ford Ranger.
The new Ford Ranger is due in Australian showrooms in the middle of 2022 and will be sourced from Thailand.
The new Volkswagen Amarok is due in Australian showrooms in early 2023 and will be sourced from South Africa.
While Volkswagen remains tight-lipped about the new Amarok – and is yet to release photos – Ford has previously said the Amarok will be a “fully-differentiated sibling vehicle”, meaning it will have a unique body and interior compared to the Ford Ranger, though share core underpinnings.
As reported earlier, the next Volkswagen Amarok is expected to adopt Ford diesel engine power rather than carryover its own engines.
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Keyword: Volkswagen Amarok hit by severe stock shortages, wait times stretch to October