A VW pickup truck in North America? Every Whole Foods parking lot across this vast nation would be full of ‘em. A cash cow to be sure, especially on the coasts. Every other major global automaker has fielded a pickup entry in this market so what’s holding up VW? According to CarScoops there’s some tricky international import tariffs that has scuttled progress. 

Typical, nicely rendered VW interior. Photo from CarAdvice.com/au

First off, if you’ve marveled at names like “Toureg” and “Tiguan,” add “Amarok” to the your pickup truck lexicon. A gigantic wolf in Inuit mythology, the marketing guys must have spent a long night surrounded by styrofoam Chinese food containers to stumble upon this moniker. Gigantic wolves aside, what it reminds us of, is the outgoing GM Colorado/Canyon mid-size trucklet. Stylistically, the Amarok steps off from there and adds tasteful, typical VW styling cues, especially in the front end and grille details.

Most Amaroks come with diesel motors, but if it lands on these shores, it would almost have to offer a V6 to be competitive with not only GM’s offerings but those from Toyota and Nissan, as well.

So why isn’t it here? Because of the “Chicken Tax,” which adds a 25 percent tariff to all imported pickup trucks … Not kidding. VW could get around this by christening it a passenger car, like Ford did with the Transit, but that would take some wrangling with the bed out back. This also explains why Toyota and Nissan have built truck plants here.

The irony of all this is the tariff is in place to promote “locally” produced goods built by “local” Americans and “local” businesses … Isn’t that the main mantra of Whole Foods?  The “local” thing? Judging by the automotive inventory of the parking lot of my “local,” branch, apparently not.

Colorado-esque Amarok is sold around the world; it would be hot seller here in the States.