It’s been a long time coming. At a media panel at the 2026 New York International Auto Show (NYIAS), Volkswagen Group of America’s CEO Kjell Gruner just said he “wouldn’t rule out” the idea of a pickup for the American market. That statement alone has sent heads spinning.
The news comes after Hyundai recently revealed its body-on-frame-constructed Hyundai Boulder Concept. But it seems that the sheer size of the pickup truck market in the US has proven hard for VW to ignore anymore.
Now, for those of you who may not be privy, Volkswagen has had a proven pickup truck in its portfolio since 2010 called the Amarok. The only problem is that VW has kept the pickup for export to Australia, South America, and Asia. It has never been on sale in the States … yet!
The Amaraok is powered by a turbocharged 2.3-liter inline-four cylinder engine that produces 300 horsepower and 333 lb-ft (451.4 Nm) of torque. That’s just a tad bit more than the likes of the 270 hp, 310 lb-ft (420 Nm) Ford Ranger.
And while the prospect of a midsize pickup does sound enticing, the German carmaker is apparently looking at the prospect of smaller pickup trucks, as Motor1 recently pointed out. Why? To understand that, you’d need to look at the general direction VW has taken.
Volkswagen’s current portfolio is based around its modular vehicle platform. Everything from compact hatchbacks to full-size SUVs, hybrids, and even its electric vehicles shares one common factor. That is, unibody construction.
Unibody cars, such as the Golf, are put together with a single cab and chassis instead of fastening a body and engine to a frame like body-on-frame trucks in the USA do. So it makes sense that VW is looking at the small pickup truck category that would make use of the same unibody construction.
So while it probably wouldn’t be a full-size body-on-frame truck like Ford and Chevrolet make, it could very well be an MQB-based B- and C-class car, most likely with a 2.0-liter TSI engine. And who knows, it could very well be produced in the USA to avoid expensive taxes and keep pricing competitive.
That means it would directly compete with the departing Hyundai Santa Cruz and Ford Maverick, which, by the way, holds a monopoly of sorts in compact truck sales in years past. Don’t forget the Slate barebones Truck that is supposed to come at a US$25,000 price point.
Gruner stated that "both [unibody or body-on-frame] can be successful" and that it depends on the application when asked what direction VW might take with the new pickup. “It depends a bit on what we want to do with it, because body-on-frame helps, of course, if you want to go more off-road and rugged, versus on-road positioning [with] unibody. Also, you could leverage existing unibody platforms. So … they have pros and cons. There's not one clear-cut solution.”
In a country where pickup trucks account 30% of all new cars sold every year, could we see a fresh face after all? VW’s 2019 Tarok concept once hinted at a move in this very direction. Could it be a reference point for what the company is hinting at?
Only time will tell. Sure are exciting times for this segment.
Via: Motor1
