What's the difference?
The BYD Shark 6 Premium has burst onto the scene with plenty of hype and a bit of side-eye from Aussie ute loyalists.
We’re a tough crowd, especially when it comes to vehicles that need to juggle family life, work gear, and weekend adventures.
So we put this handsome newcomer to the test to see whether it delivers genuine practicality and fun, or if it’s simply talking the talk in a ute-shaped body.
There was a time when utes were bought purely for work but some these days look more like high-riding prestige cars with their sparkling pearlescent paint, sumptuous leather seats that heat, cool and massage, high-tech hybrid drivetrains, independent rear suspensions and 0-100km/h times that were once the sole domain of supercars.
However, traditional ute buyers like tradies, farmers and fleets are still well catered for by some brands when seeking a utilitarian turbo-diesel workhorse designed primarily for hard yakka.
Mitsubishi has recently added 4x2 and 4x4 cab-chassis variants to its local Triton line-up comprising single-cab, club-cab and dual-cab body style across most model grades to broaden the Triton’s appeal for either working roles or adventuring.
We recently spent a week aboard one of these new cab-chassis variants in base GLX specification, to see from a tradie’s perspective if it has what it takes to cut it in the rough-and-tough world of working utes.
The BYD Shark 6 Premium is perfect for weekend camping trips or ferrying the family around the city, but the underpowered engine, mixed handling, and quirky safety tech hold it back. If it could match its rivals’ capability while keeping its sharp looks, it would be a near-perfect package but right now, it just doesn’t.
Apart from its distracting driver attention monitor, we can't see any major flaws that would detract from this vehicle’s comfort, practicality and performance when serving as either a utilitarian 4x4 workhorse or back-to-basics 4x4 dual cab for adventures off the beaten track.