Off road

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.

How does the 2017 Mitsubishi Pajero Sport compare with the Toyota Prado VX diesel for value, roadworthiness etc? It is considerably less expensive, but is there a catch? I don't intend using it a lot off road but would like the ability if needed.

Land Rover is not holding back the hyperbole for its fifth-gen Discovery. Packing in a load of tech on a chassis that also underpins the Range Rover Sport, is it, in fact, the ultimate family SUV?

Ford Australia has let one of its worst-kept secrets out of the bag with confirmation that the hi-po, toughened-up Ranger Raptor dual-cab ute will launch in the Asia-Pacific region next year.

I have no intention to go off-road, but I want to be able to drive on 4WD-only roads. My existing car, a 2013 Suzuki SX4, is perfect, except it won't hold a rooftop tent. I basically want a city SUV, but with 4WD capabilities. What do you recommend?

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.

Land Rover wants you to know just how life-changing the arrival of its all-new Discovery is. Clearly, this is a major event, so we're taking a deep dive into the detail.

The new, fifth-generation Land Rover Discovery, has been a long time coming. And the premium SUV market is a serious ball game now. Has the Disco 5 got what it takes?

Jeep has reportedly chosen a model name of its forthcoming Wrangler ute, with the Scrambler moniker to be resurrected.

As surely as night follows day, the Countryman now has a JCW pack. But is it more of a hot hatch than a quick SUV?