It felt like some form of desecration to fill the loadspace of the new VW Amarok pick-up with a pile of filthy old junk.

 
Neil Lyndon looks to use pick-up for what its best at, but maybe not the Volkswagen Amarok
 
At the back of our dustbins, a heap of cardboard boxes had grown shamefully along with filthy lengths of broken plastic drainage pipes, cracked flower pots, rusty refrigerator shelves, cushions and assorted rubbish. Having the Amarok at home for a week seemed to present an ideal opportunity to clear up all that crap and cart it to the local dump.

But the back of the Amarok was so pristine and so perfect that it seemed like an act of vandalism to start chucking lengths of sodden cardboard on that nifty, hard, ridged floor that looks like expensive carbon fibre. A pretty little picnic basket and a kiddie’s trike would have been more fitting.

What has the pick-up come to, you might wonder, when such reservations arise? If a pick-up isn’t made for lugging around half a ton of sand, some bags of cement and a wheelbarrow, what on earth is the point of it?

The new double-cab Amarok is full of such contradictions and questions. This is one of those new generation pick-ups that is light-years away from the ratty old Toyota with paint bleached in the sun that you see soon after dawn all around the world carrying six illegal immigrants to work in the fields. It’s more like the active surburban couple’s recreation vehicle for transporting tents and surfboards. The Ravenna Blue metallic paint job on our test car was so lustrous and radiant that the Amarok could be parked with pride beside the couple’s BMW 3 Series outside their townhouse on the executive estate and all the neighbours would be gawping with envy rather than derision.