Volkswagen’s Amarok is the New Go-To Expedition Vehicle [PICS & VIDEO]

Living in Oklahoma, you know the locals love to do some off-roading and mudding. It's almost like a sport, and one hell of an expensive hobby. Volkswagen is back in the game, and they chose the Sochi Olympics to help drive their public relations up with some badass expedition trucks.

Years ago, I remember seeing a documentary about Toyota's Expedition to Antarctica. Basically, Toyota heavily modified a couple of their Hilux' (Like the US Tacoma, but much more tough and badass) and took off across the continent of Antarctica. The pics were amazing, the engineering was revolutionary, and that particular trip completely redefined how "expedition vehicles" would be made from there on.

As it turned out, Iceland (the place these rad vehicles were coming from) was responsible for the remarkable designs. It turns out they've been modifying "any terrain capable" vehicles since vehicles have been imported up there.

Volkswagen decided to get in on the action this year. Instead of flying out a couple of VW Amarok's to Iceland and their insanely talented 4x4 builders, they took it in house. The Germans totally nailed a new modern "Expedition" vehicle.

To showcase their achievement, they took these wildly awesome trucks on a 16,000 (sixteen thousand!) mile trip from Moscow to Petropavlosk-Kamchatsky for the Sochi Olympics. That's more than 727 times our US Rubicon Trail! Insane.

More pics and junk here

If you'd like to get it in gear and start building your own expeditionary VW Amarok, base price is right around $33k USDollars. That's provided you can convince US Customs to let one in the USA... which might be impossible. The only problem the US Gov has with European vehicles is the fuel economy... The Amarok gets an estimated 40-ish MPG's, and too many politicians take kick-backs to ensure the oil companies stay in the rainbow of profit.