News
The BMW X4 M40i, a little sporty SUV, will be debuting at the Detroit Motor Show next week. […]
This is the kind of vehicle Leisure Wheels exists to take off the brochure and put on a real road. Not a car-park walkaround. A week of kilometres, a farm gate, and the question we always come back to: would we spend our own money?
What follows is the impression after the novelty wore off — on tar, on gravel, and in the bits between that actually decide whether it belongs in your driveway.
On tar the V-Cross is quieter than the last one we lived with, and the automatic is less eager to hunt. You feel the bakkie’s length in town, then forget it on the N1. Steering is slow in the best way: you point it, it stays pointed, and the wind noise never quite becomes the story.
Ride quality with a half-load is the sweet spot. Empty, the rear still skips a little on broken Cape tar. Loaded, it settles into the kind of lope that makes a 600-kilometre day feel like a plan rather than a dare.
It never felt like it was working hard, and after 2 400 kilometres, neither did I.
Low range is there when you want it, and the traction systems stay out of the way until they are useful. We climbed a wet, rutted farm track without drama and descended it without the gearbox arguing. Ground clearance is honest. Approach and departure angles are bakkie-honest, not brochure-honest.
It is not a rock crawler and it does not pretend to be. It is a double-cab that will take a family, a fridge and a weekend’s worth of bad decisions and bring them home with the same amount of paint it left with.
The Leisure Wheels verdict
A double-cab that still does the work, then asks if you brought the rooftop tent. Comfortable on the N1, honest on a farm road, and priced like a bakkie rather than a lifestyle accessory.
