Five Things: The best utes you can buy

Sunday, 11 July 2021

These are the ten best-selling new vehicles in New Zealand as of June 2021.

Kiwis love utes – that is reflected in our new car sales figures which regularly feature at least three utes in the top 10, usually with the Ford Ranger and Toyota Hilux fighting for the top spot.

Here, we take a closer look at five of our favourite utes, all of which make the list for very different reasons.

The best for work/life balance: Ford Ranger FX4 Max

Want a workhorse for the week and a plaything for the weekend? Then the FX4 Max is the Ranger for you.

Yes, the Ranger Raptor is awesome and really is our absolute favourite ute on sale in New Zealand today, but its fantastic ride and remarkable off-road ability (read: big jumps) come at the expense of both payload and towing ability, essentially making it a big toy. Which is exactly why it is awesome.

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The Land Cruiser 70 Series has been around for a while now, which is largely because it does exactly what it’s supposed to do.

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This is where the FX4 Max comes in – it packs similar Fox racing shocks to the Raptor, but doesn’t go the full performance-only route, thus maintaining the Ranger’s 981 kilogram tray payload and 3,500kg towing capability (on a braked trailer, of course).

This means you can use it as a workhorse during the week and a plaything in the weekends, plus you also get Raptor-lite looks, with the big FORD grille, chunky BF Goodrich all-terrain tyres and a bunch of other cosmetic and functional upgrades.

GWM’s Cannon is big (very big), handsome and extremely good value for money.

Plus, because it uses Ford’s 2.0-litre 157kW turbo diesel engine, it won’t attract a big Clean Car fee when that kicks in either.

The best for serious off-roading: Toyota Land Cruiser 70

Look, a Hilux is an excellent ute, but when you want to go seriously off-road, then the mighty Land Cruiser 70 is the only ute to go for. Unless it’s jumps, then, obviously: Raptor.

The 70 Series is a legend because of its longevity, durability and sheer off-road prowess, and for good reason – it can go damn near anywhere.

Outside the impractically massive American pick ups, the Volkswagen Amarok V6 is the gruntiest ute in the game.

With locking diffs front and rear, as well as self-locking hubs (yeah, that’s old-school tech right there), the Cruiser might only have a five-speed manual transmission, but you really don’t need many more gears than five when you have a stump-pulling 430Nm of torque from just 1200rpm. Just slap it into low range, drop it into first, and it crawls relentlessly forward like a tank.

They are in short supply at the moment, so there is a wait for one, but it may be your last chance, as the old-school diesel V8’s CO2 emissions is likely to put it on the endangered species list. Which is probably fitting, really.

The best for value: GWM Cannon Luxury

Forget “Chinese utes are coming”, they are already here and a long way from the dodgy old things they used to make using old designs and technology from established manufacturers.

The Nissan Navara latest facelift may hide an older truck underneath, but it looks damn good. And still goes well too.

Take Great Wall, for example. Their first ute foray onto our shores was the V240, using a Nissan-licensed Navara body and either a Mitsubishi petrol or Toyota diesel (later replaced by Great Wall’s own diesel).

Now we have the GWM (a more BMW-like variation of Great Wall Motors) Cannon – a deeply impressive ute of the company’s own design that offers up all abilities, bling and equipment of top-spec utes from the likes of Ford and Toyota for a literal fraction of the price – the top-spec Cannon Luxury will cost you $39,990 and more standard kit than the likes of a Ranger Wildtrak.

What is a bit of an unknown is long term reliability and durability, but the build quality is impressive, and they come with a five-year/150,000km warranty.

The best for sheer grunt: Volkswagen Amarok V6

Yep, the Amarok is getting on quite a bit now – it came out in 2010 and has only had occasional refreshes since – but the mighty 190kW/580Nm turbo diesel V6 remains the heaviest hitter in the ute segment. That’s not counting the huge and impractical American beasts, that is.

The Amarok’s V6 will hit 200kW on overboost and is a slickly grunty thing that redefined what we could actually expect from a ladder chassis pick-up.

Admittedly, the Mercedes-Benz X350d did it all better and more convincingly, but Mercedes’ lack of commitment to the idea of a ute saw that die an undeservedly premature death, leaving the Amarok as the last man (well, V6 ute) standing.

A new Amarok is coming, however (co-developed with the new Ford Ranger), so it is reasonable to expect more grunt and improved emissions. Hopefully, because the VW’s current CO2 output of a hefty 285g/km (NEDC converted to WLTP) will guarantee a hefty charge. Or a quiet death.

The best for looks: Nissan Navara

Okay, so the “new” Navara is a bit of a game of smoke and mirrors, with basically just a new face on an old ute, but what a face it is!

The Navara is now easily the “truckiest” looking ute in New Zealand, with the US-market's Titan pick up’s styling making quite the statement. The Navara looks good in basic work spec, as well as tricked up into top Pro-4X spec, which is a rare achievement when it comes to ute styling.

And the VW Amarok isn’t the only one to benefit from the Mercedes X-Class’ death either – Nissan inherited a whole lot of Mercedes-Benz suspension tweaks that it has implemented on the Navara over the last few revisions, so it rides and handles as well as it looks these days too.