Hello there, and welcome to 2019, a year I seem to have started on the back foot already?
How so?
It all started when I announced my picks for the 2018 NZ4WD magazine 4WD of the Year awards, in particular my pick for the best Large 4WD SUV AND overall SUV of the Year, Toyota’s Prado VX Ltd.
‘But it’s been around for years. Shouldn’t your awards be like ‘The Herald’s and go to ‘new’ models?” said a marketing exec from one company (which – obviously by pure coincidence – had just such an all-new model in its line-up but which, oddly, I am still waiting for the phone to ring or email programme to ping offering me one to drive!)
“It’s getting a bit long in the tooth, now,” said another (about the latest, recently facelifted and generally re-furbished Toyota) this time from a company just entering the market Toyota’s Land Cruiser-derived Prado has dominated for close to 30 years…….
Fair play on both counts, I suppose, the pair – after-all – were only doing their jobs…Or were they?
Because;
1) Toyota was one of the only companies to think that it was worth inviting the Editor of NZ4WD to the launch of a new 4WD model in 2017 and 2018…….. and
2) As part of that launch the company put together a proper 4WD drive programme which saw us spend a morning traversing tracks in the Oteake Conservation Area between the Mackenzie Country and the Maniototo. In other words, a cynical seal-only, simulated school run it was not.
Sure there are definitely newer, and there might well be a ‘better’ large family (Prado is a true 7-seater) 4WD available here. But as I told both marketing wallahs, I can only consider candidates that I am offered to drive, either at a launch or later as part of a press test programme.
Yet rather than offering the Editor of NZ4WD magazine the latest AWD SUV or 4x4 Ute to test (and therefore be eligible for an annual 4WD of the Year gong) the same marketing types who complained about why I named the Prado VX Ltd NZ4WD of the Year in 2018 offer their specialised 4 or AWD vehicles to fashion magazines, and the Editors of newspaper weekend supplements – with frankly laughable results.
A cursory scan through some of the other award programmes suggests I am definitely right about the Ranger, the Forester and the Vitara Turbo.
The Prado though?
All I can say is that there might well be a better Large (seven-seater) 4WD SUV on the market…………but if there is I’m yet to drive it.
To read the full story in the February 2019 issue of NZ4WD go to Zinio.com (January 21) or purchase your own hard copy at the Adrenalin store.
