The tougherest of them all

How do you quantify bakkie toughness and practicality? Granted, each entrant has a nite tow and payload capacity and tie-down hooks to speak to its practicality. And challenges like our drag test go some way to demonstrate their robustness. But in many ways – as we see in this category’s scores – toughness is a state of mind … a feeling, a faith in the mechanicals. Ironically, it’s quite a subjective decision; a synonym for trust when you think about it.the bakkie you’d most want to drive across the Naranger mib desert and trust it will get you to the other side safely? Yes! Now we’re talking.

The P-series, T8 and Pik Up are undoubtedly strong, sturdy bakkies, and will continue to improve with each evolution, but they’re still something of an unknown quantity in terms of reliability and durability. They’re also not as comfortable when the slog gets hard.the D-max, by contrast, revelled in the rougher conditions and found its stride as the dif culty of the challenges ramped up, claiming a hard-fought third place. The BT-50 completed the off-road course without incident, although its metallic Rock Grey paintwork and low running boards had a hard time of it.

The Navara proved it was no show pony, demonstrating its steely side when the going got tough, making it one of the better off-road steers here, and putting it mid-pack alongside the brawny Amarok and Triton.

Once again, far from backing down from the ght, the Hilux and were left slugging it out up front. The clash of the titans. After sampling each bakkie for a full day in the dunes, like a rugby TMO decision, the differences were in nitesimal with adjudicators left searching for any reason why they “couldn’t award the try” to either.

In the end, it all came down to the votes, and the vote in this category went the way of the Hilux. Probably because whenever one of the convoy got stuck in the sand (see above), the Hilux was the one despatched to pull them out.