Off road

A ute is a supremely useful and versatile vehicle but, if its tray space is not covered and lockable, it could benefit greatly from the installation of a canopy.

Dual cab utes are very popular in Australia and, as a natural progression of that, the dual cab ute canopy has experienced a massive surge in popularity in recent years – and that continues apace.

Volkswagen turns the tables on four-cylinder rivals with the 580 Highline.

You’ve got to try pretty hard to find proper icy driving conditions in Australia, but when you do, you want to have every option at your disposal to give you the best chance of avoiding a collision. Just look at the popularity of inherently all-wheel drive Subarus in the Snowy Mountains area or Tasmania. Audi is another brand synonymous with all-wheel drive, but parent brand Volkswagen is turning all four wheels by an increasing measure, with 44 per cent of passenger car and SUV sales now wearing 4Motion badges. The German brand claims this is double the industry average. It’s not just ice where all-wheel drive can come in handy either. Gravel, wet bitumen and mud are much easier to come by, and often when you’re not planning to. Australian roads are still 56 per cent unsealed according to Volkswagen.It’s easy to say that stability and traction control systems go a long way to playing the same role as all-wheel drive when it comes to accident avoidance, but it’s important to understand that all wheel drive as a proactive means of preserving traction, unlike traction and stability control which are reactive. If you can prevent a problem before it starts, surely that’s better, and the systems actually compliment each other when calibrated to work in harmony. Given the lack of ice in Australia, we’ve just travelled to New Zealand to experience Volkswagen’s 4Motion systems in the most trying of conditions, at work in everything from a small SUV, to a hot hatch, to a full-size commercial van. Volkswagen 4Motion all-wheel drive is currently available in two main types, Haldex and Torsen. The Haldex-type used in all 4Motion models aside from the Touareg and Amarok, and is a part-time system where fluid pressure controls a clutch pack to send power to the rear wheels as needed.The latest fifth generation Haldex-type system is integrated with a whole bunch of drivetrain sensors to help predict traction loss before it happens.The Touareg and automatic Amaroks use a full-time system with a Torsen, or torque sensing, mechanical centre diff that’s essentially reserved for their north-south engine layout. The Torsen system was made famous by various Audi Quattro models, and also sees duty aboard vehicles as diverse as the Toyota LandCruiser Prado.The third 4Motion type currently in use is only found aboard manual versions of the Amarok, and is essentially the traditional mechanical low-range transfer case. This version was not available to test in New Zealand. Volkswagen chose the Southern Hemisphere Proving Ground in Cardrona to highlight 4Motion’s ice capabilities, which is the sort of James Bond mountain-top network of ice circuits you’ve probably dreamed about. It would be ideal to test the same cars back to back in two- and all-wheel drive, but given the ice was hard enough to walk on, two-wheel drive would have been next to useless. So the fact that the 4Motion cars were able to drive at all is amazing. They did have winter tyres fitted, but I really doubt they made any difference on the slick ice. The cars on hand represented a good spectrum of the VW 4Motion range, including the upcoming T-Roc small SUV in 140 TSI guise, the Golf R hot hatch, the Tiguan 162 TSI mid-size SUV, the Passat Alltrack 140 TDI wagon, the Arteon sedan, the new Touareg large SUV in NZ-spec 210 V6S guise, the Amarok Ultimate 580 and would you believe it, the big Crafter van in MWB TDI 410 spec. The two ice courses on offer proved a masterclass in weight transfer and how a bigger car is much harder to turn. And I’m not just talking about the Crafter either, the T-Roc may seem like just a Tiguan with the back of its roof chopped off, but it is so much more nimble than the Tiguan on the ice. The longer wheelbases of the Passat Alltrack and Arteon made them even more difficult to unsettle, but the lower ride height and roofline of the Arteon made it that much easier to change directions.The ice also highlights how each car is set up to suit its intended purpose. The Golf R will let you turn off all its stability control for proper Ken Block-style four-wheel drifting, while the cars aimed at more sedate driving, like the Touareg or professional use, like the Amarok and Crafter will keep some of the stability control on all the time in the interests of outright safety. This also highlights the role of stability control with all-wheel drive. Without stability control, it is a challenge to get a car sideways, and planting your right foot will quickly straighten everything out. But with stability control, it’s almost impossible to induce oversteer, and therefore pretty much idiot proof, so they work really well together.For this integration of systems to keep vehicles as large and rugged as the Amarok and Crafter stable in these conditions is simply amazing.  The benefits of all-wheel drive aren't so obvious on dry bitumen, which is indeed where most of us spend most of our time driving. But to demonstrate how broad the models’ range of capabilities are, Volkswagen gave us access to Highlands Motorsport Park race circuit to experience most of the same cars at the other end of their performance spectrum.We drove the Haldex-equipped Tiguan, Arteon, Golf R and Passat Alltrack back to back with the Torsen-equipped Touareg and Amarok, and couldn’t pick any difference in the systems on the dry bitumen surface. This is going to sound a bit like a VW ad, but our track time did highlight that both 4Motion all-wheel drive systems are beautifully integrated with the stability control, suspension and tyres, with no sense of tugging or unsettling emergency reaction when you reach the limits of adhesion.This includes the Amarok too, which is a big ladder chassis ute with a solid axle and leaf springs on the back, and it maintains stability and predictability. A dual cab ute! On a racetrack!

Kia and Hyundai will have a dual-cab ute in Australia as early as 2022, with company executives confirming "work has begun" on a genuine Ford Ranger and Toyota HiLux rival.That's the word from Kia Australia's Chief Operating Officer, Damien Meredith, who

Mitsubishi has lifted the silk off its facelifted Pajero Sport large SUV, which will land in Australian showrooms in January wearing the front fascia adopted from its mechanically related Triton sibling and boosted safety equipment.

Subaru is synonymous with bringing effective – and popular – all-wheel drive wagons to market. And its Forester has done pretty well in the past as a comfortable and capable dirt-road tourer, more than appropriately equipped to tackle low-intensity off-roading. But has the company now tipped too far in the direction of style over substance? Has the Forester lost its way as a bona fide campsite conveyance?Read on.

The Toyota LandCruiser is a deadset off-roading legend, its reputation built on a lifetime of reliability, toughness, capability, not to mention the availability of Toyota parts Australia-wide.The 200 Series has been around for more than a decade and, until the 300 Series arrives here in about two years, it's your only option if you want to climb into a brand-new Cruiser.Toyota reckons the 200 is the “King off the road” so we took it into the bush to test that claim. Is the 200 actually still any good? Or does it now rely too much on technology, rather than old-school mechanicals?Read on.

I have a heavy ball weight caravan (420 kg) at tare: tare 2830 kg, ATM 3320 kg, GTM 2900 kg, tri-axle chassis 3500 kg total, axle group rating 3200 kg. I am looking at buying a Ford 5.4-litre petrol F250 so I can legally tow it. Is it legal to tow with a 3500 kg rated tow vehicle with a 4500 kg rated tow bar fitted, or do I need to go to the 7.3-litre diesel 4500 kg rated F250 with 4500 kg tow bar, or do you have another suggestion as to which is the best vehicle to tow this van with?

You've come here for a towing review. You want to know the Holden Trailblazer towing capacity, and the Isuzu MU-X towing capacity, and which of these two is the "best SUV for towing caravan". Okay, you might actually have better grammar than that, but we know you've been searching for this test. So here it is!