Volkswagen is seriously considering a compact pickup truck for United States sale. VW has been teasing us over the last two years with the VW Tanoak and Tarok truck concepts. A recent report from AutoNews suggests that VW is considering at least three truck options for the American market, but only one seems the most likely. It’s the smallest truck of them all – something like the Tarok you see here.
What is the VW Tarok? It’s a compact crossover with a pickup truck bed. It’s also referred to as an “A-segment” vehicle, and it would be based on VW’s flexible MQB gasoline-powered architecture. Other vehicles that share the MQB architecture are: VW Golf, Jetta, Arteon, Atlas, and others.
While Volkswagen could produce a midsize unibody truck that is the size of the Atlas SUV (or the Tanoak concept), it sounds like the company is thinking about a smaller truck. The reason being – there are no players in the compact pickup truck segment currently. The midsize truck segment is crowded, highly competitive, and it is getting more so.
The compact Tarok truck has a 4-foot bed, but the bed space can be extended by opening a “mid-gate” that uses the rear seats as part of the bed space. This is a similar concept that was used on the Subaru Baja.
Under the hood of the Tarok concept is a 1.4-liter turbocharged engine and a 6-speed automatic. However, the MQB platform accepts several other engines that include the 2.0-liter turbocharged engine.
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Here is everything about the Tarok from the 2019 New York Auto Show.
