The 190 kW Amarok is ready to take on any hot hatch at the traffic light.
Two-thousand-and-twenty-one was an interesting year for the South African motoring landscape.
Some things changed, like an acceleration towards greener cars, while others stayed the same like Toyota topping the monthly sales charts.
In this series of 2021 Motoring Newsmakers, The Citizen looks back at the top 20 most popular online stories of the year. The series is dominated by South Africa’s most popular body style, bakkies, while the Toyota Land Cruiser 300 was by far the most viewed single model on our website. Other local favourites in the form of hot hatches, fuel efficient hatchbacks, big, mean SUVs, compact SUVs, Mercedes-AMGs and BMW M cars also drew their fair share of attention.
What was already the fastest production bakkie in South Africa in 165 kW guise got even faster when Volkswagen rolled out the powered-up 190 kW Amarok toward the end of 2020. And the 190 kW Amarok did not disappoint during Road Test Editor Mark Jones’ high-performance test.
Not only did the 190 kW Amarok beat the 165 kW version’s sprint time and left the Toyota Hilux, Ford Ranger and Isuzu D-Max choking in its fumes, but also put hot hatches from yesteryear to shame.
Later in the year, the 190 kW Amarok was also on show at the Spirit of Amarok 4×4 championship where we got to experience it’s off-road prowess in the ultimate test laid out by the legendary Sarel van der Merwe.
There is an elephant in the room though. Is it really worth seven digits? Read what Mark had to say by clicking on the link below.
2021: Motoring Newsmaker No 7: 190 kW Amarok: Is SA’s fastest bakkie worth R1-million?
To see the rest of our 2021 Motoring Newsmakers, click on the links below.
No 8: Toyota Starlet can run on fumes
No 9: This Isuzu bakkie has X-factor
No 10: Mercedes-AMG E63 S sledge hammer of a sedan
No 11: Land Cruiser: Which is better, petrol or diesel?
No 13: Mercedes A35 Sedan the thinking man’s AMG
No 14: Toyota Corolla Cross outsells Polo pair
No 15: BMW X5 M Competition pips Mercedes-AMG GLE 63 S
No 17: Never be late in a Merc GLS 580
No 18: Toyota HiAce 54 years young
No 19: New Ford Ranger revealed
No 20: Toyota Land Cruiser gets stuck the mud