Articles by Marcus Craft
30 June 2021 by Marcus Craft
The Ford Transit van has cemented its reputation as a go-to work van for small businesses and company fleets, and the Custom Sport variant adds to that rep. In 320S* panel van guise it’s a nice-looking short-wheelbase van obviously set up for work duties, but offering enhanced drivability. (* In...Read more
28 June 2021 by Marcus Craft
The new Isuzu D-Max has impressed many: it’s well-built, very comfortable as a daily driver, very capable as a weekend off-road tourer and it’s packed with driver-assist tech. We’re testing it over a few months to see how it performs day to day, week to week, and in a variety of situations: family...Read more
21 June 2021 by Marcus Craft
The new Subaru Outback is very much like previous generations of the SUV/wagon in that it supposedly gives owners the opportunity to explore a little bit further afield even if they spend the lion’s share of their time on city and suburban streets. But this time the Outback has more onboard...Read more
9 June 2021 by Marcus Craft
The Mercedes-Benz Vito van range has this year benefited from safety and multi-media upgrades, as well as design alterations, which are aimed at making these work vehicles even more appealing to buyers in what is a hotly contested market. But those improvements have brought a price increase across...Read more
17 May 2021 by Marcus Craft
The Navara Pro-4X is the all-new range-topping variant in Nissan’s 2021 ute line-up. As part of a 2000-kilometre, multi-day test, I drove the Pro-4X from Sydney to an outback location about 900 kilometres north-west of Sydney as part of a more-than 2000km city-to-red-dirt-and-back adventure. The...Read more
3 May 2021 by Marcus Craft
The Nissan Navara has never garnered the same fanatical support as its rival the Toyota HiLux continues to attract but, nevertheless, it has quietly built a solid reputation and fanbase among ute lovers throughout the country. In recent years, Nissan’s cycle of tweaks and updates to its D23 series...Read more
21 April 2021 by Marcus Craft
Few vehicles can compete with the Suzuki Jimny in terms of pure dialled-in driver bliss straight from the showroom and out onto the dirt. This little Zook exists in the rarified air of a vehicular realm only otherwise occupied by the likes of the Jeep Wrangler Rubicon , Toyota 70 Series and Land...Read more
8 April 2021 by Marcus Craft
The Nissan Navara has always been a comfortably reasonable ute* that’s never neared the sales heights or popularity of the Toyota HiLux or Ford Ranger, but it has, nonetheless, attracted plenty of passionate fans (#navlife anyone?). (*Before all of you Nav enthusiasts get offended by my opening...Read more
7 April 2021 by Marcus Craft
The Jeep Wrangler Rubicon is one of the best adventure-ready stock-standard 4WDs in Australia. In recent months, much to the delight of Jeep fans here, the brand’s short wheelbase two-door in Rubicon guise, dubbed the Recon, has been made available in Australia, but in limited numbers only (40*)...Read more
29 March 2021 by Marcus Craft
The BT-50 has attracted its fans over the years, even with quite a polarising front-end look in recent years. Well, last year Mazda ushered in a new phase for the ute with a line-up now built on a platform shared with the Isuzu D-Max * – not the Ford Ranger as it had been before – and a...Read more
24 March 2021 by Marcus Craft
Adventure vehicles come in all shapes and sizes and the motorhome is one of the biggest and most versatile home-away-from-home mobile accommodation options there is. Well-known RV company Avida has recently launched its new motorhome range, Avida Busselton, a self-contained motorhome with a kitchen...Read more
17 March 2021 by Marcus Craft
With the ever-growing popularity of kitted-out off-roaders straight from the showroom, car manufacturers are busy capitalising on the fact that many people prefer the convenience of buying a tourer that is already fitted with aftermarket equipment from the car yard, over buying a vehicle and then...Read more
16 March 2021 by Marcus Craft
If you want to get stuck into a bit of outdoor adventure, but you’re not keen on sleeping in a swag or a tent, and you really don’t like the idea of towing a camper-trailer or caravan, then maybe a camper van will work for you. This is VW’s T6.1 California Beach camper van – it looks pretty retro...Read more
12 March 2021 by Marcus Craft
Grey nomads are a very clever mob. And you’d certainly hope that’s the...Read more
5 March 2021 by Marcus Craft
Volkswagen’s upcoming high-performance Amarok, the W580, will carve its...Read more
4 March 2021 by Marcus Craft
If you're in the market for a Ford Ranger and you can't quite justify spending the big bucks on the line-up's off-road-ready Raptor – $77,690 (plus on-road costs) – but you won't settle for an XLT, then perhaps the FX4 Max might satisfy your desire for a Ford ute. Ford has already pretty much made...Read more
2 March 2021 by Marcus Craft
There’s a confusion of choice in the realm of mid-size SUVs with refreshed ranges becoming available almost as fast as the Prime MInister’s vaccine photo-ops. The Honda CR-V VTi-LX all-wheel drive tops the model line-up and has a near-$50k price-tag to match – but is it worth that much? Read on...Read more
22 February 2021 by Marcus Craft
A single-cab chassis is about the purest form of ute you can get. Traditionally, they were purpose-built for work, and work only, with very few concessions, if any, to comfort or safety. Well, times sure have changed and the days of assuming that driving a single-cab chassis ute for any length of...Read more
10 February 2021 by Marcus Craft
The Ford Transit Custom DCiV is a commercial van, purpose-built for long work days and for clocking up lots of kilometres with a load onboard. But, as well as its load space, the DCiV (double cab in van) has six seats inside, so it has cargo- and passenger-carrying capability. So, is it worth your...Read more