Leisure Wheels

DURING my 15 years as a motoring journalist it has been fascinating to watch the whole electric car concept develop. From first hearing about the idea to driving prototype test mules and then getting behind the wheel of the market-ready products has

After months of waiting, we finally have Ford South Africa Ranger Raptor pricing. In SA it retails for R786 400. Edgar-madidi Shingange: Safety features? They steal the Wildtrak easily in Gauteng? Attyboy Mtethwa: Does it fly? Deacon Clark: Can’t com

Going into neighbouring Namibia may take a while, at times, especially when they try and operate their fingerprint system. That is why I try a different border post each time. In the process, I’ve come across a few that are easier than others. On Sou

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We’ll be honest and say we misjudged the Audi Q8 completely. But can you blame us? It is Audi’s version of the Porsche Cayenne and Lamborghini Urus, so we were expecting a fire-breathing maniac of a thing. The fact that we spent the previous week beh

One of the most highly anticipated vehicles of the year has landed in SA. The Ford Ranger Raptor is finally here and it costs R786 400. That’s almost a R100 000 increase over and above the WildTrak, so what do you get for the extra cash? For starters

The all-new Range Rover Evoque is now available in South Africa and although it looks almost exactly like the earlier model, it’s completely new. Standout features on the outside include flush door handles, LED headlamps and a more purposeful stance.

“WHERE shall we go and what shall we do when we get there?” That’s the basic premise behind every adventure we go on. This question is usually followed by a flurry of ideas, most of which sound good in your mind, but less so when spoken out loud. “Wh

THIS reputation took a turn for the worse when the automatic was launched a few years ago. It had full-time four-wheel drive and a rear differential lock but no transfer case. Many wrote it off as a gimmick and said it wasn’t possible to replicate lo

RUMOURS were that some of the huge pans in the Parque Nacional do Banhine (Banhine National Park) were full of water for the first time in 20 years. Toyota Prado 150s are capable vehicles but amphibious they are not, so while wading through swamps mi

TAKING turns with some likeminded mates riding rough out front on dual-purpose motorcycles and then later, switching places and taking it easy in the sweeper 4×4 vehicle at the back of the convoy, might be the best way to explore the back roads of So

HERE at Leisure Wheels, we are real petrolheads who like the tried and tested, things that work and can get a job done. So when the opportunity to put the I-Pace, through its, er, paces, arrived, we set out to make the best case for petrol-fuelled in

IT’S a brave move: introducing a D-Max double cab 4×4 with a price tag of nearly R800 000, in a tough, competitive and some-may-claim oversaturated leisure bakkie market. Yet it also seems to be an inspired move. Isuzu says it has increased the produ

THE heated and cooled cupholders are great but tech like that was to be expected given the car we’re talking about. German manufacturers generally use their more expensive products to debut funky things that will eventually syphon down to the rest of

THE USA is smattered with ‘shops’ dedicated to overhauling just about anything with wheels. And if it has wheels, it obviously deserves a V8 engine. Anything smaller is basically treason. Crate engines are at the core of this cultural trend. The most

WE know the feeling: you schedule a nice weekend in the Drakensberg, hoping to catch a glimpse of the snow-capped peaks. It sounds ridiculously romantic and it certainly is in that moment. You hold your lover’s hand and stare wistfully at those beaut

THE Riverside Country Club and Caravan Park campsite is situated on the banks of the Riet River, 35km south of Kimberley, near the villages of Modderrivier and Ritchie. It is about 3km off the N12 en route between Cape Town and Johannesburg. The last

We needed a 4×4 to travel to Mozambique, to check some sand tracks we were planning to use on our annual Leisure Wheels safari and we didn’t want to spend a small fortune. Just the job for our long-term Renault Duster 1.5dCi 4WD, then. Mileage at sta

20 JULY – 28 AUGUST Get yourself ready for a life-changing experience. We visit five countries with awesome national parks en route, including South Luangwa, Ruaha, Ngorongoro Crater and the Serengeti. After our five-night stay in Serengeti, we trave

THERE you are, in the gramadoelas, 4×4-ing with your buddies. It’s a real tough old track though, just the way you and your mates prefer. Inevitably, someone gets bogged down. Badly. This will be no hook up and tow out job. No siree. There will be so

THERE are clearly plenty of reasons to be pessimistic but it’s not all doom and gloom for the automotive sector. According to the latest new vehicle sales statistics released by the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of South Africa (Na

ALL the big automotive manufacturing countries have a current production 4×4 that can trace its roots all the way back to the battlefield: America, Britain, Germany and Japan. One manufacturer you’d never associate with military wheels though, is Vol