New Isuzu D-Max makes a case for the pick-up truck

When is a car more than a car? When it creates opportunities to do something new; when it becomes a key to the world around you. This introduction might seem a little profound for a road test of something found mostly on job sites and farms, but stick with us.

Think about a refined grand tourer that makes a long drive to the coast more appealing; a trip that may not have been considered in something like a hatchback. It could be an off-roader that makes light work of traversing muddy, rocky tracks up to a remote camp site. It could be a pickup truck that makes it easy – dare we say enjoyable – to clear out unwanted junk, something that might usually take a few trips. With the new Isuzu D-Max, the result is something that seems to offer a bit of everything, adept enough racking up highway miles (once up to speed) and an accomplished hauler of items big or small.

The car itself is fine – reasonably well-specced and quite handsomely styled – and would seem a logical choice for those in the market, backed up by its various awards from British press. But beyond the drive, our week with the truck was a reminder of how important ‘utility’ is for car design. I’ve driven various pickups over the years and, as if by magic, things just get done. Unwanted scaffold boards for sale? Let’s grab them to build some garden furniture and a desk. Noisy old freezer that needs replacing? Rip it out and chuck it in the back – no need for a removals callout. A garden tidy up that creates bags of rubble? Easily cleared.

“But you could do all that in an SUV, an estate, a hatchback. Those things didn’t get done due to laziness,” I hear you say. And you’re right. But cars like these aren’t designed for hauling junk in large quantities, for chucking muck or heavy bits of gear in without a second thought, and without worry of scratching leather seats. Pick-up trucks ultimately allow drivers to embrace their inner laziness by making things easy, while at the same time encouraging them to get tough work done.

Indeed, car design is about far more than aesthetics. It’s no coincidence the F-150 has been America’s best-selling vehicle for decades. It’s also why quirky yet useful cars like the Fiat Multipla or Nissan Cube have such a cult following; there’s something about them that makes sense beyond the funky exterior. At its heart, the car is a tool for personal freedom, productivity and a means to escape from what is an increasingly busy, stressful and digital world. The pick-up truck, even done badly, is an amalgamation of all these qualities.

Clearly, these are not the musings of a city-dweller. A lumbering pick-up truck is not the ideal chariot for busy, narrow roads populated by vulnerable road users. But there is a world beyond the city limits, and as many recent concepts have shown, there is a yearning to reconnect with the outdoors. Just as city cars, grand tourers or hypercars have their place, the pick-up segment should not be so easily discarded.

This article follows a week-long test of the new Isuzu D-Max pick-up totalling around 400 miles and as you might have gathered, doing a reasonable mix of long, short and mucky trips. At this stage, Isuzu will not be particularly pleased with the nature of this review, with very little description of the vehicle itself. But as outlined in the intro, readers should take away more from this than what the spec sheet can offer (you can see that here, if you’re interested.)

User Experience

Overall, the model we drove in V-Cross trim is a lot of car for the money – starting at £34,279 (US$41,732) – with convenient double cab layout, genuine off-road capability and the usual creature comforts. Beyond the touchscreen and heated leather seats there is also adaptive cruise control and a lane-keep assistance system that, on straight-ish roads, can handle the task of steering under careful driver supervision (hands on the wheel, please). Unfortunately the system is not the most capable, often veering within lane, braking harshly if a car in the distance changes lane and generally feeling a little nervous. Nice to have but room for improvement, particularly from a UX standpoint.

Several years ago, I wrote that man-machine communication needed real work, with semi-autonomous systems often thrusting control back to the driver without any useful warning. Not much has changed since those early days, and systems like these still use a small green steering wheel icon to indicate whether the car has control or not. This is not enough, and in the case of the D-Max, that tiny green icon does not stand out within the instrument cluster. The touchscreen allows Apple CarPlay and Android Auto phone mirroring, although the display itself is susceptible to glare and at times was blinding.

Powertrain-wise, we’re looking at a 1.9-litre turbo-diesel engine producing 164PS and 360Nm of torque, mated to a CVT gearbox. The resulting experience can only be described as agricultural and at times a little exasperating, with what little power there is delivered in drips and drabs as it hunts for a ‘gear’ (CVTs do not technically have individually-defined gears). At highway speeds the diesel clatter settles down and the cabin is quite serene – a real chalk-and-cheese experience in terms of NVH. Towing capacity is 3.5 tonnes, while max payload is over a tonne.

On a positive note, it is a mean looking thing with glaring headlights and an upright grille, bulky fenders and black steel side steps. We even received a “cool car, dude” comment from a teenager on a BMX. Take from that what you will. Our test car was fitted with a Black Mountain roll top cover, with a handy strap that means you don’t need to climb into the bed to pull it back into place after it is retracted back. During our time the truck was used to haul heavy bags of gravel for an hour or so, and we did find parts of the fascia around the tailgate became a little loose. These pressed back in easily, so no real bother, but interesting to see how this holds up over time.

We will have another pick-up on test very soon, also from Isuzu, only this time in menacing Arctic Trucks “Basecamp” form complete with full camping kitchen, rooftop tent and all-terrain knobblies. We suspect that this could underline the importance of the pick-up as an opportunity to retreat, explore and live – look out for our report from the Scottish Highlands soon.