Volkswagen says US pickup is back on the table

Oberkanone

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No Chicken Tax

Need to expand into another plant? How about Chattanooga? I understand they have enough land to set up an indentical sized plant to what they have originally built.
VW has assembly in South Africa. South Africa is exempt from Chicken Tax tariff so Amarok could be assembled there and imported to Canada and US.
 

dubStrom

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My wife has actually given me the OK to purchase this truck, if it ever makes it to the US.
Mine too;)

By the way... the South African plant is a "Bakkie" assembly line (SA for "truck"). They make single cab version there, which would be excellent. SA is a huge market for Bakkies. I'll take one single cab Bakkie please.
 
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kjclow

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Mine too;)

By the way... the South African plant is a "Bakkie" assembly line (SA for "truck"). They make single cab version there, which would be excellent. SA is a huge market for Bakkies. I'll take one single cab Bakkie please.
From what my South African friend has shown me in pictures, a lot of the bakkies are also open cabbed with no back wall or window. Makes it easier for hunting and general use, as long as that is not hauling manure!
 

TRONZ

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This truck would totally makes sense here. I was told VW is afraid to compete with the F150 and therefore can't sell the volume they would need. Come on, its a diesel! It would be alone in it's class. I thought competition was the foundation of any good business.
 

woofie2

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* humming to the tune of white christmas*

I'm dreaming of a white pickup, just like the ones I see on the net,
where the vW emblem glistens, and people listen,
to hear tales of 30 mpg...
 

atc98002

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kjclow

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http://www.autoblog.com/2011/09/30/canadians-may-soon-be-able-to-buy-used-cars-from-mexico

Not sure if the Amarok would qualify, due to emissions or safety certification, but it's a step in the right direction.

And if NAFTA is requiring this from Canada, shouldn't it be requiring the US to follow as well, or are there separate sections of the agreement for the US and Canada?
The article states that they will start with vehicles over ten years old and an additional year every two years until 2019. So that means if you want a used 2009 amarok, you'll have to wait until 2019 to get it. Oh, but at that time, you'll be able to get any used amarok, so maybe a 2018. Assuming that VW is still in the dark about how well this diesel truck would sell in the US and Canada.
 

lagunageorge

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We can't expect vehicles like this to be imported by any company unless they assemble them here because of the 25% tarriff on light trucks, known as The Chicken Tax.
 

kjclow

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Europe has a 25% import tariff on light trucks, and yet we get Amaroks.
Are any of the comparable trucks assembled in Europe? Or are they all imported? Other than the big three, Toyota and Nissan also assemble their trucks in NA. I would think that if the Amarok were built in Mexico, they could get around the chicken tax.
 

Mike_04GolfTDI

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I'm a little bit confused about why the chicken tax prevents us from having light duty diesel trucks.

Does the tax only apply to diesel trucks? Or gassers too?

Foreign manufacturers are able to sell gas powered trucks, like Toyota Tacomas etc. I realize they avoid the tax by doing some assembly in America or some arrangement like that. But what does this have to do with diesel? If the truck had a diesel engine instead of a gas engine it would be subject to the tax, even if final assembly is done in America?
 

kjclow

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IIRC, it covers all light duty trucks and does not stipulate fuel type.
 

kjclow

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In other words, the type of fuel used is not meaningful. It is the fact that it is a light duty truck that makes it applicable to the chiken tax. It could run on chicken ^&*& and still have to have the 25% tax surcharge added.
 

Joe Romas

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My one last new car.

VW is the only maker to successfully sell small diesels in the US.
I'm old enough to remember the Rabbit pickup and it was made in the US and had a diesel option.
At my age I would love to have a less then full size truck to share garage space with my 06 Jeep Liberty CRD. It would need to have a towing capacity of 5000 pounds. Since VW now has a plant in the US they could assemble trucks from kits and avoid the chicken tax. Just as Freight Liner has done with the sprinter. Heaven forbid I would even consider a Toyota IF they would dare to offer a diesel version of something smaller then a full size PU.
The X Big three are afraid to offer a truck that would compete with their full size cash cows.

KJclow. The chicken tax applies to ANY complete commercial vehicle imported to the US. The original Toyota pickups were imported incomplete without beds that were put on in the US.
 
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kjclow

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Oh, I thought the chicken tax only applied to light trucks.

I have a co-worker that has a couple of the VW caddies. We threw out a marble labtop a few years back and he fished it out of the dumpster. It weighed so much that his front wheels would not make enough contact to move him out of the parking lot.
 

woofie2

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Oh, I thought the chicken tax only applied to light trucks.

I have a co-worker that has a couple of the VW caddies. We threw out a marble labtop a few years back and he fished it out of the dumpster. It weighed so much that his front wheels would not make enough contact to move him out of the parking lot.
there are several caddies running around here where I live and a couple of VW double cab pickups.

"Light Truck" = less than 1 row of seating and designed to haul cargo.
the ford Shrunken SUV/VAN configuration. is imported as a passenger van, and the seats, door trim and other parts are taken out and returned to a cargo van in the US.
VW, Ford, Chevy, Nissan, Toyota, and others did the "Cab-frame and box" imports through the 80's when they closed the loophole that allowed trucks to be imported and then have the bed installed.
I am not sure about this but I believe the Light truck assembly location is now classified on how much assembly is done in which country.

There is a local boat manufacturer that imports the parts from Canada, does final assembly and gel-coating on the boats at their plants in the US because the "parts" get taxed a lot less than the boats.

If VW moved the Amarok "Ute" truck body stamps to the US and stamped the body and painted it, then installed imported seats, hardware, Drive train, and glass there would be no question.

The only trick would be passing NTHSA, EPA and other tests and regulations.

I am not buying the new Passat's "German car feel" I owned a couple of Saturns, they may have been inspired, based on and built like German cars, but they were not a VW.
 

waltzconmigo

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i was just down in Colombia and saw a few Amarok's. i have no clue how much room there is for negotiating but the price range was huge. I believe they are sold like the vw's up in Canada with the comfort-trend-highline configurations. anyway, an ad showed pricing at 49,725 US$, i called a dealership and the salesman sent me pricing of 43,170 thru 47550. these prices were for the three they had on the lot, all manual, i do not know if you they are available with a automatic/dsg. looking on the internet i found a vast disparity in pricing, from 34,500 to 54,100. all prices are in US dollars and have been rounded. i am just putting this information out there for anyone who is interested. i would think that at 35,000 it may be able to compete but pushing fifty seems like a recipe for failure. if anyone is interested i could do a little comparison on what other vw models sell for and see if they line up with the pricing here.

ciao,
waltz
 

Jack_Berry

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We were in Denmark last month. Not an anorak to be see. A lot of. Crew cab krafters with utility beds though. We did see 1 full size p-u from. Dodge, ford and gm.
 

rme

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Im with you. Hope production starts soon. I'd like to see what they have in them and it would give the after market people a chance to start putting the toys together that would really make it look sharp.
 

kjclow

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Throw the lift kit and the monster tires under it and it makes the truck look bigger. Still want one! My wife even says she will let me buy one too.
 

BEN721364

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This may have been mentioned eaerlier in this marathon thread, but the Amorok looks very much like the Ford Explorer Sport Trac that went nowhere, sales wise.
 

atc98002

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While available worldwide except North America, earliest availability is "possibly" 2015 when presumably it is redesigned to make room for a Urea tank.
And my wife has already told me I can trade in when that happens :D
 
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