• News
  • Guides
  • Reviews
  • Media
  • About
  • News
  • Guides
  • Reviews
  • Media
  • About
Sign up Now (For Free)

Sign up for our newsletter and receive the latest automotive news in your inbox!

Invalid email address
We promise not to spam you. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Thanks for subscribing!
News
Read Now
  • All News
  • Automakers
  • Automobiles
  • Auto Shows
  • Business
  • EVs & Environment
  • Guides
  • Lawsuits/Legal
  • Regulatory
  • Ride-Sharing
  • Safety & Recalls
  • Technology
Recent
  • Week Ahead: Numbers, Numbers and More Numbers
  • The Rearview Mirror: All That the Name Implies
  • Top Tips for Improving EV Range in Cold Weather
  • Mercedes is First Automaker to Offer True Level 3 Hands-Free Driving System in the U.S.
  • Audi Introduces Fourth “Sphere” Concept: Activesphere
  • Jaguar Land Rover Posts First Profitable Quarter in Two Years
  • Musk Confirms Cybertruck Production Tracking for End of 2023
  • Polestar Raises its Game with the 2024 Polestar 2
  • Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda Steps Down, Hands Reins to Lexus Chief Koji Sato
  • Environmental Groups Chide GM for ICE Investments
Editor’s Choice
    Reviews
    Read Now
    • All Reviews
      • Feeder
    • Classic Cars
    • Concept Cars
    • Convertibles
    • Coupes
    • Crossovers/CUVs
    • Diesel
    • Hot hatches
    • Hybrids
    • Luxury Vehicles
    • Minivans
    • Muscle Cars
    • Pickups
    • Sedans
    • Sports Cars
    • Super Cars
    • SUVs
    Recent Reviews
    • A Week With: 2023 Ford F-150 Raptor R 4x4 Super Crew
    • A Week With: 2023 Genesis Electrified G80 AWD
    • A Week With: 2023 Land Rover Defender 110 V-8
    • First Drive: 2023 Honda Pilot TrailSport
    • A Week With: 2023 Jaguar F-Type R Coupe
    • A Week With: 2023 GMC Yukon Denali Ultimate
    • A Week With: 2023 Genesis GV60 Performance
    • A Week With: 2023 Chevrolet Suburban Z71
    • A Week With: 2023 Lexus UX 250h F Sport
    • A Week With: 2023 Mercedes-Benz EQB 300 4Matic
    Editor’s Choice
      Guides
      Car Warranty
      • Endurance Warranty Reviews
      • BMW Extended Warranty
      • Extended Warranty For Cars Over 100k Miles
      • Extended Car Warranty Cost
      • Subaru Extended Warranty
      • CarShield Reviews
      • CarShield Cost
      • Aftermarket Car Warranty
      • CARCHEX Warranty Reviews
      • Reputable Extended Car Warranty Companies
      • Used Car Warranty Companies
      • Best Car Warranty
      • Is CarShield A Scam?
      • Mercedes Extended Warranty
      • CarShield Plans
      Insurance
      • How To Identify A Car Insurance Company
      • Geico Mechanical Breakdown Insurance
      • How Far Back Does A Car Insurance Company Look
      • Mechanical Breakdown Insurance For Used Cars
      • State Farm Mechanical Breakdown Insurance
      • Mechanical Breakdown Insurance From Progressive
      • Dollar A Day Insurance
      • Auto Insurance For SSI Recipients
      • Car Insurance Rates After A Suspended License
      • Auto Insurance For Salvage Vehicles
      • Average Cost of Dodge Ram 1500 Car Insurance
      • Car Insurance Florida
      • Full Coverage Auto Insurance
      • GrubHub Insurance
      • Amazon Delivery Auto Insurance
      Shipping
      • Car Shipping Companies
      • uShip Reviews
      • Auto Shipping From California To Hawaii
      • Montway Auto Transport Reviews
      • Cheap Car Shipping
      • Easy Auto Ship Reviews
      • Auto Shipping Miami
      • Auto Shipping To Alaska
      • Car Shipping Cost
      • Auto Shipping Hawaii
      • Auto Shipping Puerto Rico
      • Sherpa Auto Transport Reviews
      • Auto Shipping Atlanta
      • Auto Shipping Boston
      • Auto Shipping. Chicago
      About
      • About Us
      • Contact Us
      • Terms of Use
      • Privacy Policy
      • Affiliate Disclosure
      • Sitemap
      TheDetroitBureau.com

      More than just “another” place to find news, reviews, spy shots, commentary, features, and guides about the auto industry. TheDetroitBureau doesn’t stop with the press releases or confuse a few lines of opinion with insightful, in-depth reporting.

      Contact Us

      Like what you see? Have some ideas for making The Detroit Bureau.com even better? Let us know, we’d love to hear your voice.

        Media
        Listen Now
        • Headlight News: All Episodes
        More from TheDetroitBureau
        • Guides
        • Latest News
        • Auto Reviews
        • Podcasts
        Headlight News

        TheDetroitBureau.com’s Headlight News offers a look at the past week’s top automotive news stories, as well as what’s coming up in the week ahead. Check out the week’s top story and our latest review…along with a dive into the past with this week in automotive history.

        home > news > Auto Shows > VW Targets the American Heartland with Atlas Tanoak Pickup Concept

        VW Targets the American Heartland with Atlas Tanoak Pickup Concept

        “We want to be a relevant player” in a truck-crazed market, says CEO.

        Paul A. Eisenstein
        Paul A. Eisenstein , Publisher & Editor-in-Chief
        March 28, 2018
        Volkswagen's Hinrich Woebcken unveiled its Tanoak pickup concept at the New York Auto Show.

        There are few surprises at auto shows these days, at least from a media perspective, automakers routinely signaling what they’ve got coming, usually offering press kits and pictures well in advance of a product’s official debut.

        Volkswagen managed to pull off one of the rare surprises this year, however. While it did give a heads-up on plans to roll out the Atlas Sport Cross Concept it managed to keep pretty much everyone in the dark about a second introduction at the 2018 New York International Auto Show: the Atlas Tanoak Concept.

        Truck News!

        While that’s just a show car for now, the big question is whether it signals the automaker’s intent on getting back into the truck game for the first time in decades. If so, it would become only the second modern pickup to be based on a crossover, rather than a traditional, truck-based platform.

        “Tanoak draws from the heritage of American pickup trucks while being more of a lifestyle vehicle,” said Hinrich Woebcken, president of VW of North America. “It’s huge.”

        VW officials claim the Tanoak is purely a concept, but a company with no pickup truck, that's subject to change.

        In this case, as the name implies, that means the same architecture as the three-row Atlas SUV Volkswagen launched barely a year ago – and the two row Sport Cross Concept debuting in New York that will return in production form in 2019, part of what Volkswagen Group of America CEO Hinrich Woebcken refers to as the new “Atlas family.”

        (VW poised to launch a pickup truck, possibly in NYC. To get details, Click Here.)

        A handful of gearheads might now be piping up, “Wait, Volkswagen does build a pickup already,” and it’s true, it did launch a model in some overseas market, dubbed the Amarok, through its Commercial Vehicles unit back in 2010. And, back in the 1980s it had an El Camino-like model, based on the original VW Rabbit, on sale in the U.S. But that pint-sized, underpowered model didn’t last long and few cared as it slipped into oblivion.

        At first glance, The VW Tanoak appears to be far more suited to the American market than either of those pickups. At 214.1 inches, nose-to-tail, it’s about four inches longer than another car-based pickup, the Honda Ridgeline. And it’s actually about the same length as the shortest versions of both the Ford F-150 and Chevrolet Silverado. The VW pickup also boasts ground clearance of 10 inches.

        That’s about two inches taller than the Atlas, incidentally. Tanoak is also 15.8 inches longer than the three-row SUV overall, with its 128.3-inch wheelbase adding another 11 inches. The pickup concept is 79.9 inches wide, and 72.6 inches tall.

        Those numbers speak to the flexibility of Volkswagen’s modular MQB platform. It might seem hard to believe, once you see the Tanoak, but it shares the same underlying architecture as such VW classics as the Golf and Jetta, never mind the bigger Passat.

        As for its powertrain, there’s a classic gas engine, rather than the hybrid and all-electric drivetrains that VW has been touting for all of its other recent concepts and production models. In this case, that means 3.6-liter V-6 making 276 horsepower and 266 pound-feet of torque. That’s paired with an eight-speed automatic that sends power out to all four wheels with a version of the VW 4Motion AWD system using Active Control. That lets a driver shift between a variety of different on- and off-road modes. VW, meanwhile, claims the Tanoak will launch from 0 to 6- in 8.5 seconds.

        The Tanoak appears to be targeting the heart of the pickup market, with a dual-cab, short-bed configuration. And it seems to have learned a lesson it took Honda some time to figure out, opting for a solid and traditional, rather than exotic, design. If you want to appeal to truckers, stick with the classics.

        (Click Here to see more about VW confirming plans for I.D. Crozz electric SUV.)

        The question, of course, is whether VW really does want to get into the pickup game? Some might counter: why wouldn’t it. The full-size segment accounted for about one in eight new vehicles sold in the U.S. last year, and the vast bulk of the profits earned by Detroit’s Big Three. The Ford F-150, in particular, was not only the best-selling truck in the American market, but the top-selling vehicle, period, with volume coming to nearly double that of the leading SUV, the Toyota RAV-4.

        And it would seemingly fit into the German automaker’s strategy, shown by the arrival of the Atlas which was very specifically designed with the American market as its top priority.

        “We want to be a relevant player in the market, a full-line player,” Woebcken told TheDetroitBureau.com on Tuesday evening, following a media backgrounder on the Atlas Sport Cross Concept.

        The question, coming out of Wednesday’s debut of the Tanoak is whether it’s intended to be more than a mission statement and tease a product actually under development. Woebcken, for his part, would only say that, “A family starts with two,” refusing to confirm production plans for anything other than the Sport Cross, but he quickly added that the carmaker “always looks at growth potential and other opportunities.”

        (To see how pickups are dominating U.S. vehicle sales, Click Here.)

        For now, VW says the Tanoak is simply a concept, and Hyundai said the same about another model. When Hyundai looked at the overwhelmingly positive feedback for the Santa Cruz concept a few years back, we’re willing to bet VW will be spending a lot of time reading the tea leaves – and talking to potential buyers – to see if there’s a real growth opportunity for it in the U.S. pickup market.

        How to Care for Your Car

        Cheap Car Warranty

        Editor's Choice

        Best Extended Car Warranty

        Editor's Choice
        Recently Published
        New cars

        Week Ahead: Numbers, Numbers and More Numbers

        Today

        The Rearview Mirror: All That the Name Implies

        Jan. 28, 2023
        GMC Hummer SUT winter testing

        Top Tips for Improving EV Range in Cold Weather

        Jan. 27, 2023

        One response to “VW Targets the American Heartland with Atlas Tanoak Pickup Concept”

        1. Gearhead Grrrl says:
          March 28, 2018 at 11:14 am

          Thanks for mentioning us “gearheads”, and would be nice if VW listened to us for a change.

          So VW wants to split a 40,000 unit a year market for hacked off minivan/crossovers with Honda? Not very bright, but from the company that built a billion dollar plant in Tennessee, spent another billion to expand it to make another cookie cutter crossover, and is now struggling to use 20% of that plant’s capacity, would we expect any less?

          VW USA is like your weird counterculture friend that found a niche and did pretty well in life. Then he get’s into a little crisis, cuts his hair and goes corporate, and bombs at it. Vw, stay weird, it’s what we love about you…

          Reply

        Leave a Reply Cancel reply

        Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

        Share this article:
        © The Detroit Bureau 2023
        • Guides
        • Privacy Policy
        • Terms of Use
        • Affiliate Disclosure
        • Contact Us
        • Sitemap
        Follow Us: