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| SA best 4x4, the Iveco Daily 4x4 can also like to pull babes. |
You can lead KZN skippers to water, but you cannot force them to
pick one, best bakkie
WE use two very simple sums at Witness
Wheels to recommend a bakkie as a towing vehicle.
All we want to know is how much torque the bakkie has at low revs
and how much the dealers charge for this power. Most boat pullers use two extra criteria to choose a bakkie.
Depending on which part of the coast you hook your boat, this is either a
bakkie’s trendiness or its affordability. This means our list of recommended bakkies looks a lot different to
the short-list that we collected from the boat-pulling fraternity.
In Durban, for example, Nathan Munthree from Boat-a-rama lists a
Ford Ranger, Nissan 3,3 Hardbody or Land Cruiser 4,5 as his clients’ preferred
boat-pullers. In this part of the world, the skippers have ski-boats, often with
girls in tiny bikinis tanning on the deck.
Further down the coast around Margate and Sheppy, where the
skippers and dive masters will tell the bikini girls to get off the boat to make
space for paying clients, Lance Moore from Ocean Marine says the best bakkie
depends on one’s budget. He added the guys on the South Coast who do a lot of
beach work swear by Mitsubishi, either a 2,8 Colt or the 3,0-litre 4x4.
Up in pragmatic Pietermaritzburg, Dave Pitts from Pitts Marine
advises that a Ford Ranger 4x4 has the most power for the average boat for those
pulling on the beach. But he adds that a half-ton bakkie is all you need to get
a small boat of up to 3,5 metres or about 500 kg to most farm dams.
For a ski-boat of over 18 feet, he agrees there is, however, only
one boat puller, the Toyota LandCruiser.
In industrious Pinetown, where the skippers work as hard as they
play, Bill Harrison of Natal Caravans and Marine says for overall towability the
BT-50 or Ranger 3,2 is best — but get the automatic, he says. It makes towing
that much easier.
Harrison drives a previous model BT-50 himself and said it is still
as good as any bakkie on the beach.
If budget is not a concern, he recommends the Nissan Navara V6, but
recently he was also impressed in the new 3,0 Isuzu by the performance from the
3,0-litre engine, the attention to detail in the cab and the comfortable
ride.
He adds the Toyota Hilux 3,0 to his list, because it is relatively
cheap to service although it does not have the pulling power of the others.
In all big bakkies, the small rear window and high load bins make
it very difficult for drivers to accurately reverse to hook up a trailer.
Harrison advised that investing in a rear view camera averts a lot
of potential dents.
Wendy Chapman from Hooked Up Motorsport in Pinetown specialises in
selling jet skis, a business which she said is growing fast as more people take
to angling off a ski in the ocean. A jet ski and trailer weigh only about 600 kg
and she said any bakkie that is high enough to work on the launch ramp, would do
the job.
For the man with everything
R557 450 Iveco Daily 4x4: A constant 350 Nm between 1 400-2 600 rpm
with more gear ratios than most guys know how to use makes the Daily almost as
good as a Unimog, but considerably cheaper.
R618 900 Nissan Navara 3,0 dCI V6 4x4 LE (550 Nm from 1 750 rpm):
This bakkie can pull a pod of whales to shore, but it is so thirsty you will
need your own oil well.
R463 000 Toyota Land Cruiser 79 4,2D: The legend lasts because it
is over-engined and underpowered, but its owners will never admit to paying too
much for just 285 Nm.
For he who dares to be different
R269 995 Tata
Xenon 2,2L 4x4 XT (320 Nm from 1 700 rpm): Still the best-kept bakkie
secret in South Africa.
R339 995 SsangYon Actyon Sports 4x4 (360 Nm from 1 500 rpm): The
ride comfort will please the family, the power will please the driver.
R349 950 Foton Tunland 2,8 Comfort (360 Nm from 1 800 rpm): Built
by truckers for truckers, we tested the Cummins engine and it actually makes 379
Nm, 19 Nm more than Foton said it is supposed to have.
For the bargain hunter
R245 900 GWM Steed 2,0 VGT 4x4 Lux (310 Nm from 1 800 rpm): Forget
what you think you know about Chinese bakkies and go test drive one.
R370 200 VW Amarok 2,0 Trendline 4Motion (400 Nm from 1 500 rpm):
This is still the most German engineering you can get for your money.
R440 700 Mazda BT-50 3.2 4x4 SLE (470 Nm from 1 750 rpm): The Mazda
and Ranger are the same, but Mazda costs less.
