AS ONE-TONNE utes become increasingly popular as family cars, demand for luxury and lifestyle-oriented variants grows.

Volkswagen has responded with the Dark Label edition, limited to 300 units in Australia and offering some stylish interior and exterior flourishes to the up-spec Highline dual-cab variant on which it is based.

With 2015 proving to be the year of the one-tonner and new or updated versions of big-hitting products such as the Mitsubishi Triton, Nissan Navara, Ford Ranger, Mazda BT-50 and Toyota HiLux all hitting the market, we lived with the Dark Label for a week to see whether Volkswagen’s benchmark-setting Amarok remains cool among hot competition.

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