Volkswagen turned the tables on its competitors when it flexed its corporate muscle and reached into its parts catalogue to offer a 3.0-litre turbodiesel V6 in its Amarok range.
The Amarok, once scoffed at by some die-hards for its European roots and its 2.0-litre engine, had surged to the front of the pack as the most powerful dual-cab ute you could buy in Australia.
The only catch? To get the gruntiest '580' engine option you’d need to spend north of $70k for the Ultimate trim level.
Now, though, Volkswagen has made the bigger engine more affordable than ever, offering it in the lower ‘Highline’ trim.
So we were shipped thousands of kilometres from the nearest major city, to the middle of the Simpson Desert, to put this new Highline 580 through its off-road paces.