What Van? Britain's biggest and best van buyers' guide

It was with a heavy heart that we bid farewell to our Amarok Aventura long-termer a few weeks ago.

It’s not often you come across a light commercial vehicle that delivers such an exhilarating driving experience once you clamber behind the wheel. Emotional appeal, after all, is supposed to be monopolised by hot hatches and sports cars while LCVs are all about no-thrills practicality, aren’t they?

Well, VW’s flagship pick-up truck goes some way towards rewriting the rule book.

With a 3.0-litre V6 TDI engine beneath the bonnet pumping out 224hp and with maximum torque of 550Nm kicking in at 2,750rpm the Amarok is not designed to live life in the slow lane – it has a top speed of 119mph and thunders from 0-60 in eight seconds. One of the principal joys of the eight-speed auto transmission installed in our truck is how smoothly and effortlessly it allowed such blistering performance to be delivered.

While the Amarok is also offered with a six-speed manual gearbox, VW reckons the auto accounts for four out of five sales. It is unashamedly targeted at the lifestyle market and, as such, is only available as a double-cab – those after a salt-of-the-earth workhorse pick-up are likely to look elsewhere.

The price tag may also prove prohibitive: the Aventura 224hp auto costs £31,995, excluding VAT. Until the Mercedes X-class comes along in 2018 this puts it in a fiscal league of its own. By way of comparison, the Nissan Navara Tekna 2.3 190hp Auto is priced £27,529 and Ford’s Ranger Wildtrak 3.2 200hp Auto is £27,491.

But this should not imply the Aventura is too posh to get mud under its tyres.

It may be hard to imagine it sloshing about in farmyards or clambering over bricks and piles of gravel on building sites, but it remains a robust truck that is more than capable off-road, with the automatic derivatives equipped with VW’s permanent all-wheel drive 4Motion system that’s capable of reaching the most inaccessible destinations. After all, the last thing all those surfers, cyclists, canoeists, ramblers, mountaineers and other assorted adventurers want is to be thwarted in their pursuit of leisure.

But the Amarok is also suited to more humdrum practical tasks and during its time on our fleet it assisted with two house moves – jobs facilitated by the addition of a £1,960 (ex-VAT) Truckman hardtop cover to protect household goods from the elements. A meaty payload of 1,114kg compares to the Navara Tekna Auto’s 1,054kg and the Ranger Wildtrak’s 1,003kg. A 3.1t towing limit, however, falls short of the 3.5t offered by the likes of the Isuzu D-max, Ford Ranger and Nissan Navara.

The Amarok has a loading height of 508mm – pretty much par for the course for a pick-up – and compares to the Toyota Hilux Invincible X Auto’s 480mm and the 511mm of the Ford Ranger Wildtrak Auto. A turning circle of 12.9m, however, is big – the Mitsubishi L200 can spin in 11.8m.

The materials inside the cab are of high quality, and when it comes to user-friendliness and functionality there is much to admire. The reversing camera and all-round parking sensors provide peace of mind when negotiating tight spots in cities and the Discover Media navigation system with incorporated Bluetooth connectivity is impressive. Pairing my iPhone with the system to allow hands-free conversation while on the move was a simple and
pain-free procedure.