Give Back The Old One
by MIke Grundon (02 Dec 05)

The first snows of winter were just starting to dust the high hills of Shetland as I pulled the 4x4 Hilux pickup off the road and headed up the dirt track. No one has ever doubted the off-road ability of Toyota’s utilitarian workhorse, but when a new model arrives it's nice to make sure it’s still got what it takes.

This was the 2005 model, the sixth incarnation since it first appeared in 1968. It was described as bigger and bolder than the outgoing model - "one size up" is the phrase coined by Toyota - but the question that needed answering was: is it any better?
 
Early morning and it should be getting lighter as the day arrived, but the bank of gunmetal cloud heaving in over the open moor made it something very different. The sky was heavy with the promise of a blizzard and the rising gale was whipping spray off the rain-swollen peatwater burn splashing across the track in front of me.

I pulled the transfer box lever back into H4 - high range four-wheel-drive - and plunged down into the flood. It was as if the water, swelling up against the lower flanks of the truck, wasn’t there. Without effort we forded the deluge to rise, dripping and scrambling, up the steep gravel exit ramp before turning to cross shallow but slimey mud for a hundred yards or so to the foot of the hill. L4 locked us in low ratio and the nose rose onto the incline. The 1.8-tonne vehicle was climbing wet grass on peat loam at around 30 degrees and I hadn't even had to stab the button that locks the rear differential. Coming back down the same slope, engine braking drew it back to tickover speeds. I could have got out and walked down beside it . . . had that blizzard not now arrived.

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