We rustled up three of the best from Mitsubishi, Nissan and Toyota and headed to the Coromandel to find out.

Ever since I have been holidaying in the Coromandel (and that is now 20+ years and counting...) I’ve heard stories about people living ‘off-the-grid’ up in the hills.

One passed on more recently – but which tallied with a fleeting glimpse I had while out on a bush run last Christmas – was of a long-time visitor to the area finally moving in full-time to the eco-house he had been building up a long and torturous driveway high in the hills behind Whitianga.

The driveway, so the story went, was a 4WD-only affair tackled with verve by said mysterious owner, in an old, rust-streaked Jeep Cherokee on his weekly trips to civilisation for supplies.

Coincidentally, a good mate has just sold up his family home of 30+ years and moved to the Peninsula himself, and – being the sort of fellow who delights in knowing everybody’s business – I phoned him and after the usual small talk involving our still Auckland-based friends, asked if he knew anything about ‘an eco-house built up a long driveway?’

Well, talk about the floodgates to the local rumour mill (if you don’t mind me mixing my metaphors) opening... for the next 20 minutes I got chapter and verse.

First up was a rumour doing the rounds of the local ‘Reeza’ (RSA) about some mysterious but obviously monied Americans throwing two (and in one spectacular case over Kuaotunu way, apparently) three times the GV at slack-jawed local property owners so they could build their, ‘architecturally-designed’ millennium bunkers.

Then came the slightly more believable story of a recent ‘Lotto winner’ turning up in ‘a brand new Merc’ wanted to know what sort of discount he could get off the $2.3 million asking price of an ostentatious ‘gin palace’ high on the hills between Whitianga and Simpsons Beach for sale as part of a divorce settlement... if he paid cash which, apparently, he had brought with him!

Of eco-houses and long torturous 4WD-only driveways, however, old mate had heard not a peep. So – very long story short – when I needed a decent day’s drive with on and off-road sections to test our latest batch of turbo-diesel, double-cab utes I decided on a trip to Whitianga to see if we could get to the bottom of the story – and hopefully the top – of the driveway!

Three’s company

The old saying, three’s company, four’s a crowd is certainly true of group tests. So we again stuck to a three-ute sample this year.

The big news in terms of the trio was Mitsubishi’s bold new Triton VRX which also proved to be the price leader at $49,990 + ORC. It was joined by a Toyota Hilux (in our case a demo SR5 Cruiser with a no-more-to-pay price of $56,990 kindly supplied by – cheers Haydn and team – Albany Toyota) and a Nissan Navara ST 4x4, again supplied by a dealer.

This time it was from Jason Du Toit, the ever obliging New Car Manager at Manukau Nissan, and was a $57,290 RRP six-speed –manual ST model. 

Initially, I was after autos but when I asked around at a grassroots drift day I was at what sort of trannie the ute owners there preferred, more (five of the eight I asked) said ‘a manual any day!'

So when I asked Jason what sort of demo units he had ‘on the lot’ and he said ‘a nice black ST manual’ I was like ‘I’ll take it!’

Getting to and from

Rather than constantly moaning about the state of Auckland’s traffic choked motorways, I prefer to work round them. So the plan was a nice early (5.30am) start then trickle out to Clevedon and on to Kawakawa Bay, Kaiaua, and eventually the Hauraki Plains, Thames, Coromandel and Kuaotunu for a late breakfast. 

Once there my plan was a little more free form; stop, chat, and subtly raise the question with whatever chatty local/s we could find about a long, tortuous driveway to a luxury eyrie high in the hills, somewhere in the general area.

Sketchy? Sure but if nothing else we were going to give the three utes a good workout on everything from smooth city motorway to dusty Coromandel back road and – hopefully – a steep, narrow bush track of a driveway requiring Lo-Range 4WD!

If we stumbled upon it, and it didn’t have a big fat, padlock on a gate at its base, I figured the best thing to do was head up it until we found a house, knock on the door and introduce ourselves.

If the ‘mysterious owner’ was at home my plan was simple; introduce myself and my ‘mission’ and hope he enjoyed the notoriety his build and driveway had generated...

And if he didn’t and invited us (as has happened on the odd occasion before my time on the magazine) to ‘piss off back where we came from’ the only down was... back down the 4WD-only driveway... completing a decent sort of test.

Usual suspects

Driver-wise I only had to find two willing co-conspirators, which helps no end with the logistics of a multi-vehicle test, and when Company Vehicle Editor Sean Willmott and colleague and off-road racing media man Mark Baker both said ‘hell yeah’ at pretty much the same time, I had one less thing to worry about.

And so, very early one gorgeous autumn day three TD DC utes were seen running in convoy from Clevedon to Kawakawa Bay the up over the Touge-like ‘pass’ to Orere Pt and our first serious stop for photos.

I led the way initially, anyway, in the (Toyota) SR5 Cruiser with Sean tucked in behind in the Mitsubishi and Mark riding shot gun in the (Nissan) Navara.

Story by Ross MacKay, Mark Baker and Sean Willmott. Photos by Mark Baker.

To read the full story in the June 2019 issue of NZ4WD go to Zinio.com (June 18) or purchase your own hard copy at the Adrenalin store.