Articles by Marcus Craft

Ford has bolstered the Everest Titanium's off-road armoury with a new no-cost option including an 18-inch wheel-and-tyre package, suspension changes, and tweaks to its driver assistance tech.

The Chinese-built petrol-only LDV D90, due here on November 15, is aimed at rattling the cages of established large seven-seater SUVs like the Toyota Fortuner and Ford Everest.

Toyota and Ford better watch their back because a HiLux and Ranger rival is on its way. Well, that’s according to Chinese automotive manufacturer SAIC Motors, who has come out swinging in the latest round of Aussie ute market fisticuffs with the sharply priced, features-packed dual-cab LDV T60.SAIC execs, and local division LDV Automotive Australia, know they’re in no position to tackle the big guns of the ute market here just yet – let’s be realistic – but they are aiming to tackle Mitsubishi Triton et al. They’ll first have to convince a skeptical Aussie ute-buying market that, at last, a Chinese-built vehicle, marketed as a workhorse and recreational vehicle, is actually built well enough to cope with those duties. LDV has certainly put the effort in: the LDV T60 was tested for more than two million kilometres in temperatures ranging from -40 degrees to plus 50 degrees, as well as comprehensive testing at Asia’s largest test track, Guangde.The base-spec T60 Pro is $30,516 (driveway).The diesel-only five-seater LDV T60 is available in one body style – dual-cab – and two trim levels: Pro, aimed at trades, and Luxe, aimed at the dual-purpose or family recreation market. The four options are: Pro manual, Pro automatic, Luxe manual and Luxe automatic. All of which are powered by a 2.8-litre common-rail turbo-diesel engine, producing 110kW@3400rpm and 360Nm@1600rpm-2800rpm. Both transmissions are six-speed. Claimed fuel consumption is 8.8L/100km for the manual; and 9.6L/100km for the auto.The base-spec T60 Pro is $30,516 (driveway); the Pro automatic is $32,621 (driveway), the Luxe manual $34,726 (driveway), and the Luxe automatic $36,831 (driveway). ABN holders will pay $28,990 (for the Pro manual), $30,990 (Pro auto), Luxe manual ($32,990) and Luxe automatic ($34,990).It is a big, chunky unit: 5300mm long, 1900mm wide, and 1800mm high. The tray is 1480mm long, 1500mm wide and 500mm deep. It has a plastic tub liner and six tie-down points.The Pro has a multi-bar headboard to protect the rear window; the Luxe has a polished chrome sport bar. Both models have roof rails as standard.The ute’s other standard features in Pro form include cloth seats, a 10-inch colour touchscreen with Android and Apple CarPlay, automatic height adjusting headlights, 4WD with high and low range, 17-inch alloys with a full-sized spare, side steps, and roof rails.Safety gear includes six airbags, three ISOFIX child-seat restraint attachment points in the rear seat, as well as a raft of passive and active safety tech including ABS, EBA, ESC, reversing camera and rear parking sensors, Hill Descent Control, Hill Start Assist, and a tyre-pressure monitoring system.The Luxe gets leather seats and leather-bound steering wheel, electrically six-way adjustable and heated front seats, automatic climate control and Smart Key system with Start/Stop button as well as an automatic locking rear differential as standard.The LDV T60 has been ANCAP tested but the results of those tests are not available as yet.Front suspension is double wishbone and heavy-duty leaf springs at the rear. The tray has a has a 3000kg braked tow capacity, which may irk some of the numbers-conscious ute-buying public who put plenty of stock in the 3500kg benchmark. It can tow 750kg unbaked. Payload is 1025kg for the manual Pro; 995kg for the automatic Pro.The Luxe payloads are 875kg (manual) and 815kg (automatic). Gross Combined Vehicle Mass is 6050kg for the Pro and 5950kg for the Luxe.For off-roading enthusiasts here are the numbers worth noting: ground clearance is 215mm, wading depth is 500mm, and front and rear departure angles are 27 and 24.2 degrees respectively; ramp-over angle is 21.3 degrees.The LDV T60 has been ANCAP tested but the results of those tests are not available as yet. At the LDV T60 event, Vice President of LDV’s parent company SAIC, Qingsong Lan, said he was “very confident” the ute would get a five-star ANCAP rating.It has a five-year/130,000km warranty, 24/7 roadside assistance and 10-year body perforation rust warranty.While first impressions of the LDV T60 were good – it has to be one of the best built Chinese utes to ever land on these shores – we won’t believe the hype until we have a chance to drive the LDV T60 after it goes on sale from October 1.T60 Pro - $30,516 T60 Pro automatic - $32,621 T60 Luxe manual - $34,726T60 Luxe automatic - $36,831

We were parked just outside the front door of the Marree pub, in the South Australian Outback, about 650km north of Adelaide, when a curious local strolled up to us.“You blokes testing the new Isuzu?”This fella had his badges mixed up, considering we were in Mazda BT-50s, three of them, parked in a neat line outside the watering hole from which he’d just emerged.“Nah, mate. Mazdas. BT-50s,” I said.“Yeah, they’re good too,” he said, vaguely impressed, and, after raising his eyebrows skywards, he loped away.There’s nothing new in this BT-50 beyond the 8.0-inch Alpine colour touchscreen entertainment unit, but Mazda reckoned it was as good a time as any to give their ute another solid test out in the bush – and what better test than the Birdsville Track? This iconic bush track, a must-do on any serious off-roader’s wish-list, is more than 500km of dirt and gravel, potholes, corrugations, searing heat. Great stuff. What’s more, it runs parallel to the eastern edge of the Simpson Desert – or “The Simmo!” to my bogan mates – which is another great Aussie adventure.The Simpson, covering more than 170,000 square kilometres and taking in parts of the Northern Territory, Queensland and South Australia, is the world’s largest sand dune desert and Australia’s fourth largest desert. It has the longest parallel sand dunes in the world, more than 1100 of them, some of them 200km long, running north-west to south-east.We wouldn’t be venturing too deep into the desert though, not on this trip, we would, however, have a chance to play on Nappanerica (aka Big Red), the Simpson’s biggest sand dune at 40m high, which is about 30km west of Birdsville.Our final destination for this run? Birdsville, for the annual Birdsville Races, when the sleepy bush town in Queensland’s far west, swells from 280 people to more than 7000 party-hungry race-goers. We’re in a top-spec GT dual-cab and were raring to go – no badge-confused bushie was going to ruin it for us.

The Ford Ranger is a serious threat to the Toyota HiLux’s continued reign as king of the ute market. In fact, in January this year Ford’s popular workhorse pipped Toyota’s perennial champion as Australia’s best-selling ute for the third time in six months. The Ranger outsold the HiLux for the first time last

Safety should be foremost in your mind when buying a new ute. After all, it's a highly risky game of dodgem cars played out in fast-moving two-tonne tanks.

Look out Fortuner and Everest. Isuzu has just updated the MU-X for the second time this year, with an exterior facelift and a smarten-up of the interior atop the new drivetrain it scored in February.

Isuzu's D-Max has always been a solid middle-of-the-market ute; nothing more, nothing less. Not as slick as many of its heavily manicured and marketed rivals, but it has a real rough charm.

Marcus Craft road tests and reviews the new Foton Tunland dual-cab 4X4 with specs, fuel consumption and verdict.

Marcus Craft road tests and reviews the 2.0T GT version of the new Infiniti Q60 coupe, with specs, fuel consumption and verdict at its Australian launch.