Articles by David Morley

While some utes are bought on reputation, some for their styling and others on their basis of their performance, Isuzu’s D-Max range of utes has been a strong seller on the basis of value-for-money and ruggedness. 

There’s absolutely no doubt about it: Regardless of who Mazda forms strategical technology alliances with, the BT-50 badge carries a strong enough reputation that the model is a strong seller. The original BT-50 arrived in Australia in 2006 and was a shared model between Mazda and long-time collaborator Ford. 

Heading outback? You might be running on hydrogen, not batteries in years to come.

Holden’s Colorado ute in space cab and dual cab forms has been a popular choice among tradies and private owners since the badge was introduced in 2008 to replace the old Holden Rodeo badge.As a result, the Colorado has ben put to just about every use imaginable, and in many cases, that has meant the fitment of a canopy. In fact, the Colorado in all its forms, including the sporty Z71 variant, has been fitted with just about every type of canopy ever dreamed up, from home-made steel and canvas jobs to service bodies, alloy canopies and, of course, the ever-popular fibreglass or thermoplastic variety.So what are your options? Without a doubt, the simplest canopy is the still-common canvas cover which is slung over a skeleton frame made from either steel or alloy bars. These are common on Colorados fitted with either a flat tray or a drop-side alloy tray and make a great no-frills space cab canopy. Many are purchased off-the-shelf, but the construction technique lends itself very well to custom made canopies to suit specific requirements. This type of canvas canopy offers one-person fitting and removal and the ability to be removed or slid forward quickly to allow for bulky loads on a regular basis. The downside is that they aren’t always very dust-proof and they don’t offer the security of a hard canopy with locking access points.More specialised is the service body style of canopy which is usually constructed and clad in metal and allows for secure storage for tools and work supplies. The permutations of these are more or less limitless and they can be custom made to achieve a very specific end result with a very specific use in mind. Usually attached to a flat-bed tray, a service body or steel canopy can also incorporate storage space below the tray, either side of the vehicle’s rear wheel to maximise efficiency. Many have the option of roof or ladder racks on top of the basic structure.Far and away the most common canopy for a Holden Colorado is the fibreglass or high-tech plastic units which are most commonly attached to vehicles with the standard tub arrangement., Forming a secure roof over that tub, these canopies are also great for providing a dry, secure storage environment. But with windows to each side and to the rear, they’re also great for carrying pets safely. The windows and lift-up tailgate also make for decent access for working out of and, like a service body, the roof is usually strong enough to allow for roof racks and tie-down points. The construction method of these canopies (ie: a moulded main body) means they are less likely to be custom-made, but buyers can certainly option them up in many ways to achieve the result they want.A lot of ute owners are of the opinion that the best fitting canopy for their vehicle is the one that was offered as a genuine part when the vehicle was new. That’s not necessarily the case any more, and plenty of car-makers outsource their canopy supply to specialist companies anyway. That said, a genuine part-number canopy is a great way to ensure that the thing will fit properly, will be compatible with all the vehicle’s other systems and the colour match (where you’ve paid to have the canopy match the car’s colour) will be as spot-on as possible.The problem for Colorado owners, of course, is that Holden as a brand doesn’t exist any longer and, in fact, the last brand-new Colorados were sold around the same time the brand disappeared; about the middle of 2020. So if you want a genuine Holden Colorado canopy, you’ll need to track down a former Holden dealership (and many were multi-franchise, so the business may still operate with its other makes) that has some NOS (New Old Stock) stored in its warehouse. To be honest, it’s a bit of a long shot and you could spend a lot of time searching and not finding anything.The saving grace here is that the aftermarket has always recognised that the Colorado was a popular model and has continued to support the range with a good selection of canopies including the types we’ve mentioned here. And like the OEM stuff when it was around, the better aftermarket brands also offer colour-matching as well as the usual options that owners seem to be looking for.The aftermarket (or second-hand) is also the place to look for a canopy for a previous-gen Colorado. Many canopy manufacturers will keep a popular canopy in production long after the vehicle itself has disappeared from new car showrooms. Brands such as ARB, TJM, Flexiglass and Carryboy (to name just a handful) all have a wide range of choices for the Colorado and continue to service the Holden brand generally. So even if your Colorado is the old RC model rather than the later RG version, you might still be surprised at the choices you have.You can contact the above canopy manufacturers and deal with them directly, and in most cases, the bigger brands will have a network of showrooms and accredited installers who can take the job from start to finish in one place, including colour-matching.The other alternative is to visit one of the many huge four-wheel drive accessory stores that have opened up in recent years and look at a wide range of makes and models in one place. Be warned, though; these places are like a magnet to four-wheel drivers and leaving with not just a canopy but a car-full of other gear you didn’t know you needed and an empty wallet is a very real possibility.Don’t ignore a second-hand canopy either. Since there are few moving parts, these things are a safe bet and if there’s no visible damage to the structure, you’re off to a good start. Check the for sale classifieds on your favourite website.You can cobble together your own canvas canopy at home for a few hundred dollars, but even a professionally made canvas unit can be had for as little as $1500, or so. An alloy or metal canopy will be more expensive and a service body custom-built to a specific brief can be literally thousands of dollars. The upper end of the off-the-shelf Holden Colorado canopy price range is around the $5000 mark and that gets you a really high-end canopy with plenty of options and a factory warranty.Adding options is a great way to make sure the canopy will suit your needs in the long term. Take notice of details such as whether the tailgate operates on a single lever or a pair of handles. The former is much better for those who often have their hands full of gear as they approach the vehicle. LED lighting is a nice touch and you can also specify central locking for the canopy then can even be made to work with the vehicle’s own central locking.Do you want window tint? A roof rack? Ladder racks? A roof vent? Extra tool boxes? It can all be arranged and most of the bigger brands offer all this stuff. It costs extra, of course, but if it makes the vehicle a better, more convenient piece of equipment, it’s definitely worth considering when you specify your canopy. Don’t forget about handy additions such as internal drawer systems and whether you like sliding or hinged side windows.Don’t forget to let your insurance company know you’ve had a canopy fitted. Both the replacement value of the vehicle and the cost of the premium could be affected. But basically, if your insurer doesn’t know about the canopy and the vehicle is a total loss, the cost of the canopy may not be included in the pay-out. Meantime, a vehicle with a secure canopy fitted might represent a reduction in the insurance cover for your work tools and camping gear.

Carmakers invest years, billions of dollars and millions of kilometres of testing making sure their latest product is fit for purpose, but it’s often the details that set some makes and models apart from the rest. 

In an automotive world where manufacturers are struggling to fill new niches every day, with the inevitable model propagation that comes with it, it seems Ineos is prepared to go it alone.

Ineos Automotive’s hard-as-nails Grenadier off-roader is sure to give the establishment a shake-up when it arrives in Australia, even though it’s still about 12 months away.

To say Aussies love their utes is a gross understatement. The fact is, dual-cab utes are the hottest selling vehicles in the marketplace right now, and they have been for some time. The reason? Well, a lot of it has to do with the sheer practicality of a ute.

It’s generally agreed that, when it comes to towing, the bigger, heavier the car doing that job, the better. 

Moving a non-working car to a place to be worked on or simply stored out of the way, involves towing it. If the distance to be covered is the length of your suburban driveway and the vehicle rolls, you can get away with using a piece of tow-rope or tow straps and towing (or dragging) the car at super-low speeds with somebody inside the towed car to operate the steering and brakes.But if you’re towing a car any distance, or it has no steering or brakes, then a trailer is what you need to do the job safely and efficiently. How to tow a car with another car is not something you’ll be taught at school, so here’s our quick towing guide.As well as a vehicle capable of safely hauling the weight of the trailer and towed load, car towing also requires a trailer that is physically big enough to accept the car you want to move, as well as rated for the mass of the load.Renting a trailer is one way to achieve this, but be aware that the renting company often won’t ask what you intend to tow. So just because they’ve taken your money, don’t assume that the trailer you have is big enough to do the job legally.The best advice it to choose the biggest car trailer the rental firm has available. Don’t forget that the renter won’t supply the securing equipment, either; you’ll need to provide your own straps and ropes.The same goes for choosing a car to do the actual towing. The best towcar is one that is big, powerful and heavy. A big engine with lots of torque – turbo-diesels are great for this – and a vehicle that weighs at least as much as the car and trailer combination you’re towing – like a full-sized 4X4 – is a great way to go.Towing something as heavy as a car will also require that the trailer is fitted with brakes. These are often mechanically operated, but some trailers use electric brakes. If the latter is the case, you need to make sure that the vehicle doing the towing has the correct controller fitted to 'talk' to the electric brakes. Knowing how to use trailer brakes is crucial, as getting any of this incorrect has all sorts of legal and insurance implications should something go wrong on the road.The actual act of towing a vehicle on a car trailer isn’t so different from that of towing any long, tandem-axle trailer. But there are two major differences. The first is that the towed load often has a higher centre of gravity than many other types of loads.That’s because you’re towing a car with its own centre of gravity that is now being carried at the height of the trailer’s deck. So, you need to allow for that in terms of your towing speed and when braking or turning as a higher, heavy load like a car is a lot more likely to influence the overall dynamics.Car trailers also usually use dual (tandem) axles to spread the weight and make the whole combination more stable. Older, single-axle trailers are not really used for towing cars anymore. The car trailer will also be a heavy thing to start with as it needs to be stronger than a conventional trailer to carry the 1.5 or even two tonnes a car weighs.The second difference is that a car trailer is usually at least 600mm wider (often more) than a conventional trailer. That’s because the trailer’s wheels are generally pushed out to allow the loaded car to sit inside them and lower the towing deck-height. Which is good design, but it also means that the trailer is now a lot wider than the vehicle towing it and you need to take that into account when turning and squeezing past obstacles and other traffic.Don’t forget that you’ll need a very wide parking spot at the shops and be careful to leave enough clearance between the trailer and the pump at the service station. And unlike, say, a motorhome which is also long and wide, you need to remember that a car-trailer combination is articulated (it bends in the middle, so takes a different path through corners).There are no hard and fast rules for what gear you should tow in, and you should allow your speed to dictate the gear you choose. But conventional wisdom says you shouldn’t tow in an overdrive gear ratio.So that rules out top gear in either a manual or automatic, mainly because towing in overdrive places a huge stress on the transmission internally.Beyond that, towing a car requires the same skill-set as towing anything else. You need to be able to manage the gears of the towing vehicle as well as making sure you have the braking performance and the cornering stability to ensure the whole rig makes it safely to the other end.If there’s any doubt in this department, the golden rule is to slow down to give yourself more margin for control and stability.Reversing a car trailer is no more difficult than reversing any other long-ish trailer, and there’s simply no way to describe that process in a few words. However, it’s worth noting that many people find it easier to swivel their body and look out the rear window than to rely on the reversed image of the mirrors, and, therefore, add one more layer of non-intuitiveness to the process.Probably the most critical element of towing a car on a trailer is actually loading the vehicle to be carried. Towing a car versus most other objects is a bit like the difference between carrying a Lego brick on a tray, versus carrying a ball bearing on the same tray. The ball bearing is much more likely to make a break for freedom.When you think about it, the car, with its wheels designed to roll and take the car with them, is much more like the ball bearing than the plastic brick. So effectively securing the car to the trailer is crucial.There are several ways to do this, but the easiest is by tying the vehicle down to the trailer via the car’s tow-hooks, that’s what they’re for after all. On a car without tow hooks, find a solid part of the vehicle’s underbody to tie off.Avoid suspension or steering arms that could bend, and make sure that whatever rope or strap you use isn’t going to crush brake or fuel lines on the car. Ratchet straps that tighten mechanically and then lock into position are the best ones to use.Arguably the best method that has gained acceptance in recent years is to use special straps that form a `cage’ around the car’s tyres and are then secured to the trailer’s tie-down points. That method allows the car to retain its full suspension travel for the journey (avoiding damage to the vehicle) but ensures that the wheels cannot move. Which in turn, means the rest of the car won’t be moving either. In the old days, chains and tensioners were used and while they are still in use in the trucking industry, for everybody else, they’re old tech.A common mistake people make is to have too much of the load’s weight rearward of the trailer’s axles. This can lead to instability at speed, causing the trailer to sway and, ultimately, jack-knife, dragging itself and the tow-vehicle off the road. The trick here is to make sure the trailer sits level once everything is tied down, and, if anything, have slightly more weight closer to the front of the trailer than the rear. The best way to do that is to put the car on the trailer facing forwards (for a conventional, front-engined car). Or in other words, with the engine pointing toward the tow vehicle.Physically loading the car is best done with a winch attached to the trailer. A car that’s driving can be driven on to a trailer, but it’s tricky and dangerous. A much better way is to use the winch and take your time. Make sure the ramps will handle the mass of your car and ensure that they’re locked into position properly so they can’t shift as the load is half way on to the trailer.Once the car is loaded, apply the park-brake and put the transmission into gear (not neutral) or Park in an automatic car, as extra insurance against the car moving mid-journey or if you have to brake or swerve suddenly. Once you’re loaded and ready to roll, make sure the trailer’s ramps are stowed properly and secured.You don’t need a special license to tow a car-trailer but there are some specific rules about towing in some states. And typically, towing laws are not uniform so it pays to check with your local authorities before committing.Broadly speaking, though, you can tow a trailer at the posted speed limit except for Western Australia where the absolute limit is 100km/h even in a 110km/h zone (but the posted limit everywhere else).NSW has the other curve-ball; a 100km/h limit on any (vehicle and trailer) combinations greater than 4500kg. While that sounds a lot, a 2.5-tonne 4X4 towing a one-tonne trailer and another large car could easily approach that limit.And don’t forget that some carmakers impose their own towing-speed limits as well as a maximum towed weight limit. Check your owner’s manual for the details.But get the act of towing a car right and you’ll save plenty of money over paying a tow-truck operator to take the same car to the same place. And if there’s a downside to all of this, it’s probably that once you’ve become practised at the art of towing a car-trailer, word will get out and you might become in demand from friends and family for towing other cars that suddenly need to be moved.