What is it?
The Volkswagen Amarok, a newcomer to the lucrative pick-up market. This is the double-cab, ‘SUV-spec’ Amarok, in plush Trendline trim with VW’s new twin-turbo, 161bhp 2-litre BiTDI engine. Prices are yet to be announced.

Technical highlights?
The engine is the smallest to appear in this sector and delivers an impressive 295lb ft from just 1750rpm. It also boasts almost car-like economy and emissions (36.4mpg and 206g per km). You’ve the choice of permanent or selectable all-wheel-drive, both with low-range gearing. All models get a rear diff lock and a host of off-road gubbins including hill descent control and – more impressively – off-road ABS, which allows foot-stamp emergency braking on ground you’d struggle to stay standing on.

What’s it like to drive?
Exactly what you’d expect from a Volkswagen pick-up, which is one of its greatest strengths and also, in a way, its downfall. On road, it rides impressively, only the deepest of potholes embarrassing the leaf-spring suspension, and, inevitable bounciness aside, it glides along just like an SUV. Handling is good for a vehicle of such size and dimensions, but there’s no unlikely heroism to its dynamics: it’s talented but free of evoness.

The engine is strong, and while it struggles with the Amarok’s two-ton weight at low revs, it comes into its stride further up the range, where overtakes are accomplished with laughable ease. More power wouldn’t go amiss, though, and the 120bhp version is likely to feel quite sluggish. The six-speed manual has a suitably chunky shift (there’s no DSG gearbox option yet).

Off-road is perhaps its forte; it can climb up impossibly steep and muddy banks and negotiate its way back down them with ease, and if a mud-plugging pick-up is your requirement, it’s unlikely to put a foot wrong.

How does it compare?
To the rest of the pick-up class, rather well. It offers a refreshingly European alternative to the Nissan/Mitsubishi/Toyota triumvirate. If you want an SUV then it’ll likely do nothing to sway you; its open back is suited to commercial work and towing, not school runs.

Anything else I need to know?
It can tow up to 2.8 metric tonnes while its payload can top 1000kg, making it a useful tool if you’ve a trackday toy or racing car and associated accessories to lug from circuit to circuit. It’d be a comfy and stylish thing to so in, too. Oh, and it’s the only vehicle in its class whose payload can handle a Euro pallet loaded sideways. So there.