GRR Garage: Volkswagen Amarok – shrinking

Pickups are all about size, they’re meant to be big, to dominate the road and drag as much stuff around as possible, they are huge and the bigger the better.

That’s where our long-term Volkswagen Amarok will surprise you. It is over five metres long, almost two metres wide and nearly two metres tall, it should really roll around all over the place and really work to haul itself to 60mph.

Actually it’s got a 3.0-litre V6, as we’ve discussed before, so it hits 60 in eight seconds, which can give plenty of warm hatches a run for their money, and while it definitely rolls more than a hot hatch, it isn’t noticeably so.

It’s quite astonishing how the Amarok shrinks as you drive it. We’re not talking shrinking to fit you the way, say, the Alpine A110 or Toyota GT86 do. More that it feels more like driving a small SUV, or even an estate. You know it’s big and you need to take that into account (especially in tight areas) but most of the time you really need fear nothing of the Amarok’s bulk. The steering is finger-light, thanks to some pretty heavy duty power assistance, and 1.9m isn’t actually that wide in the grand scale of things (an Aventador is 2.0m wide) so it isn’t like you feel squeezed in normal lanes.

In fact, the Volkswagen Amarok feels more like a car to drive than a truck. That could have a lot to do with the badge on the nose, but it’s even more impressive when you think that the Amarok has a ladder chassis and leaf spring rear suspension. Perhaps there is a reason people buy pickups?

MPG this week: 32.4.