The Back-up Bakkie

As you can imagine, the all-newGreat Adventure Series(GAS) involves some logistical planning. And some behind-the-scenes organisation and route checking and food tasting and, well, you get the Idea. For this reason, we've taken delivery of an Isuzu KB250 X-Rider 4x4 double cab.

EARLIER this year, an Isuzu KB250D-Teq X-Rider 4×4 joined us in Lesotho for the annual Leisure Wheels Safari.

It was up against some heavy hitters. Like Volkswagen’s popular Amarok 3.0TDI V6 4Motion. And Ford’s Ranger 3.2TDCi 4×4. And the KB’s own sibling, the KB300D-Teq LX 4×4 Auto.

Over three days the X-rider, powered by Isuzu’s well-proven 2.5-litre four-cylinder turbodiesel engine, managed to stick with all the more powerful bakkies (even though its driver later admitted he had to work the KB rather hard to achieve this).

On paper, the KB was certainly the underdog. The diesel engine delivers 100kW of power and 320Nm of torque (at 1 800r/min), and it sends the power to the rear wheels (in default drive mode) via a five-speed manual gearbox.