SA bakkie Cross Country: Amarok to use TT-RS engine

Cape Town - The Volkswagen Amarok will make its official debut at the opening round of the 2016 Donaldson Cross Country Championship in Vryburg on April 1-2 2016.

Two Amaroks, which were designed and built by Thompson Racing, have been entered for the RFS Endurance race as private entries by Atlas Copco and RFS Motorsport.

New team

The RFS Motorsport entry will be in the hands of Christiaan du Plooy and co-driver, Henk Janse van Vuuren. Gary Berthold and his co-driver, Pierre Arries will drive the Atlas Copco entry.

Arries, a former two-time SA Rally championship winner in an S2000 Polo spoke to Wheels24 exclusively about his first taste in the off-road cross-country discipline.

The Capetonian said: "I'm excited for the new challenge, I have lots to learn but ultimately I'm looking forward to it.

Watch: VW cross country Amarok in testing

Powered by a TTRS engine

The RFS Endurance race is one of the seven events that the Amaroks will contest in the 2016 championship.

The Amarok race car is powered by the previous generation Audi TT-RS five-cylinder 2.5-turbo petrol engine capable of 225kW/500Nm. The transmission is a is a Sadev 6-speed sequential.

A photo posted by Wheels24 (@wheels24_sa) on Mar 31, 2016 at 6:29am PDT