It’s out. Volkswagen’s best kept secret is out. At VW do Brasil’s website. The price for the mid-size (for Brazil) Volkswagen Amarok is out. It’s way out there. You can pre-order now. Ready? Take your checkbook out. Breathe deeply …

For a measly R$119,490.00, that’s right, for a pittance of US$66,383.33, the VW Amarok can be yours. In Brazil.

In return, you get a bi-turbo 2.0 diesel good for 163 costly ponies. A 6-speed manual gearbox. 4×4 traction. 2.52 square meters in the (truck) bed. There is Volkswagen’s alphabet soup, consisting of ABS (Anti Blocking System) , TCS (Traction Control System), EBC (Electronic Braking Control) , BAS (Brake Assistance System), EBD (Electronic Brake Distribution), ESP (Electronic Stability Program), EDL (Electronic Differential Limiter). There is an acronym-free (AFAIK) uphill start holder, along with a downhill controller.

Speaking to well-known Brazilian car magazine Auto Esporte, Volkswagen’s Wolfgang Schreiber said that such an endeavor was a first for VeeDub. So they went to the land of pickups and built a test track for it in the USA. Naturally, the aforementioned mag asked whether they had benchmarked Ford’s Ranger, or Chevy’s S10 in the truck’s development.

Said Schreiber: “No, those models are below in quality to what we had in mind for the Amarok.” (Any heart attacks in Detroit are purely coincidental).

He went on to say that they did in fact view the Toyota Hilux as a worth opponent. As far as the interior goes, they went after the Nissan Frontier. In the process, Mr. Schreiber said they destroyed 10 Hilux(es).

For comparison, I looked up the prices of the closest possible versions of the Amarok’s competitors (all double cab turbo diesel versions) in Auto Esporte’s print version. Here’s what I found:

The Toyota Hilux starts at R$87.800 (US$48.777). Loaded to the gills, it goes for R$119.900 (US$66.611).

The Nissan Frontier begins at R$112.590 (US$62.550). Fully decked out, it would set you back by R$119.890 (US$66.605)

The Ford Ranger costs us Brazilians a modest R$80.570 (US$44.761). Or R$86.610 (US$48.117) with all the bells & whistles.

The Chevy S10 base model costs R$78.778 (US$43.766). Blinged-out, lofty R$100.436 (US$55.798) would be due.

Just to clarify, the VW Amarok is built at VW’s Pacheco (in Argentina) plant. So thanks to the Mercosur agreement, they pay no import tariff. That’s just the real price.

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