VW celebrates Guinness World Record with special edition ute

Inspired by the successful around-Australia pursuit of the same name, and focused on the off-roading purist, Volkswagen has created the Amarok 10 Deserts Edition. Utilising the Amarok Life TDI500 as its base, the new variant has better ground clearance, extra underbody protection and off-road focused tyres.

As for the record itself, a Melbourne-designed Amarok completed an arc of Australia’s 10 deserts in a record-breaking six days, 17 hours. This limited edition offering, available from Q2 2025, honours that feat in multiple ways.

Designed to be more attainable than the Style, PanAmericana and Aventura grades, it runs a 500Nm bi-turbo diesel engine. It's inspired by the core changes that helped the Amarok tame Australia’s Great Victoria, Great Sandy, Tanami, Simpson, Gibson, Little Sandy, Strzelecki, Sturt Stony, Tirari and Pedirka deserts.

That means it features unique black ‘10 Deserts’ badging. A standard black tonneau cover and contrast white-only paint, and 17-inch black alloy wheels are also unique to the 10 Deserts Edition. A suspension lift kit raises ride height by 40mm to deliver 275mm ground clearance.

Volkswagen will strategically position the Amarok 10 Deserts Edition between $60,000 ‘sticker packs’ such as the Ford Ranger Black Edition, and rival off road special edition variants that cost above $70,000 plus on-roads.

While a final price is yet to be announced, it will sit between the Amarok Life TDI500 and Style TDI500, which will set you back $60,990 and $70,990 plus on-roads, respectively (based on 2024 model year pricing).

“We planned for the Amarok to cross 10 deserts in 10 days, but it managed to conquer the harshest Australian terrain in under a week,” Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles director Ryan Davies said.

“Our aim with the Amarok 10 Deserts Edition is to capture the elements that made our Volkswagen 4MOTION product work so well in Australia, tougher tyres, underbody protection and class-leading clearance… [delivered] in a lighter and attainable package.”

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