Marques
Volkswagen’s four-wheel drives begin with the wartime amphibian: 15,584 Type 166 Schwimmwagen, the most-produced amphibious car there has been, and the four-wheel-drive Type 87 saloon beside it. After the war they came from around the group — Audi drew the Iltis, whose drivetrain became the quattro and which won the 1980 Paris–Dakar; Steyr-Daimler-Puch at Graz converted 45,478 Transporters to Syncro; Toyota built the Taro; Bratislava builds the Touareg, three times a Dakar winner; and the Amarok has sold 830,000 in its first generation.
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All 6 Volkswagen marques by years in production, 1948 → today
The two four-wheel-drive wartime Volkswagens: the Type 166 Schwimmwagen, 15,584 built in 1941–44 and the most-produced amphibious car in history, and the Type 87 Kommandeurswagen, a saloon body on the same chassis for senior officers — 564 by Wikipedia’s count, 669 by others.
The Bundeswehr’s light four-wheel drive of 1978–88: drawn by Audi from the DKW Munga, 3,880 mm long on a 2,020 mm wheelbase, 1,300 kg, with a 1.7-litre petrol four of 75 PS or a 1.6-litre diesel. 9,547 were built, and Bombardier made thousands more in Quebec.
The four-wheel-drive Transporter: 45,478 T3 Syncros built between 1984 and 1992, converted by Steyr-Daimler-Puch at Graz with a viscous coupling and locking differentials, and 2,138 of them the 16-inch heavy-duty version with 246 mm of ground clearance.
A rebadged fifth-generation Toyota Hilux, sold as the Taro from February 1989 to March 1997. The four-wheel-drive version arrived in September 1994 with an extended cab on a 3,095 mm wheelbase and was built only at Toyota’s Tahara plant.
Built at Bratislava from 2002: the 7L on a 2,855 mm wheelbase and the 7P on 2,893 mm, with the 4XMOTION package’s two-speed transfer case and locking differentials, and engines from a 2.5 R5 TDI to the 4,921 cc V10 TDI of 313 PS and the 6.0-litre W12.
Volkswagen’s own one-tonne pick-up: the 2H from 2010 on a 3,090–3,095 mm wheelbase, built at General Pacheco and Hannover, and the Ford-built NF from 2022 on 3,270 mm. 830,000 first-generation Amaroks were sold between 2010 and 2022.
