Mixing work and play

From Gauteng to Gqeberha, through pot-holed roads and treacherous mountain passes. Ford's next-gen Single- and Extra Cab Rangers sre put to the test

- Oliver Keohane

In a road show requiring a bit of logistical tap-dancing, Ford South Africa took several drivers on a trip from Gauteng to Gqeberha. Fifteen different Single-and Super Cab models trekked roughly 1 500 km, testing the cars on not only highways, but some very gnarly byways, too.

To my great delight, we spent a lot of time nosing over rocks, tight-roping through narrow passes and sloshing through mud and water.

An added novelty of this press tour was that some of the bakkies were loaded: Ford bought several Jojo water tanks to be transported to communities in the drought-plagued Eastern Cape.

My first impression as we headed out in our Single Cab 4×4 - with a JoJo tank strapped tightly to the load bed - through Joburg's early morning traffic and hit the first stretch of open road was: "Wow, this thing motors". The ease and pace at which our car moved up through its six gears and the way it maintained a high cruising speed was impressive. Towards the middle of the second day, we ventured off-road for the first time.

We were surrounded by great expanses of green grass as far as the eye could see, and the morning's rainfall spiced the air so that, once we opened our windows, the mountains and valleys didn't just drift by, but also into the cab on the breeze.

The beauty of the landscape disguised the rugged terrain we had to manoeuvre through. After an hour or so of bumpy, technical driving, we reached Tstsikamma Village, which is not to be confused with the popular Garden Route destination of Tsitsikamma. At the bottom of a valley, against the backdrop of the Eastern Cape's impressive mountains, lay a scattering of small houses.