ADVENTURERS

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Ford’s 8-inch touchscreen is a little smaller than the Isuzu’s unit, but twin digital driver displays either side of a central speedometer work well.

Impressive body control makes the Everest the pick on the black stuff, with fast steering that makes it feel more agile than it should.

It’s also adept off-road, where the Ford feels planted and predictable, inspiring confidence in tricky situations, helped by the only multimode terrain management system here.

TOYOTA FORTUNER CRUSADE

The Fortuner is the black sheep in Toyota’s four-wheel-drive, SUV and ute family, which dominates the sales charts. While the Hilux, Landcruiser and RAV4 seem unstoppable, this Hilux-based wagon has not gelled with Australian families.

Priced from a little more than $68,000 driveaway, the Fortuner is expensive to run due to six-month service intervals that return a $3521 maintenance bill over five years. It has a good degree of equipment, including an 11-speaker JBL stereo and a useful household power point outlet, but it feels dated thanks to a fussy infotainment layout and old-school fake wood veneers.

Third-row seats that flip down from the sides rather than fold under the floor are trickier to wrangle than its rivals.

Toyota’s off-road chops are let down by the least generous ground clearance here and 700 millimetre maximum water wading depth that falls 10 centimetres short of the Ford and Isuzu.

A 2.8-litre turbo diesel engine feels punchier than its 150kw and 500Nm figures suggest, though it’s also a bit noisier than we’d prefer.

Meaty steering and stiff suspension make the Fortuner easy to place off-road. But it fell down on tarmac, juddering over broken surfaces that didn’t trouble rivals.