Don't believe them when the manufacturers, dealers and journalists tell you they are utes or SUVs. They might account or four of the 10 top-selling vehicles in Australia but they are trucks. Smallish trucks but trucks. They look like small trucks, drive like small trucks and quack like small trucks.
So, we hired one from Hertz in Brisbane to drive to Queensland Raceway and back. More on that later. Well we hired the Ford Wildtrak which I think is about $75k drive away with more to pay for the AdBlue you need to put in the tank every now and then.
There are a lot of real SUVs you can buy for that money but most are pretty wimpy, none have you sitting up as high, none have as much room for your only four friends and none make you feel so tough your next ram-raid job won't even scratch the paint. And you can stash more contraband in the back tray than you can in your yellow Lambo.
Ours had the new coast-to-coast instrument panel which Ford says "increases the sense of space and width in the cabin." We say, if you thought the iPad in the Tesla was ginormous and distracting, then the Wildtrak one makes it look like a BlackBerry screen. It's the Imax of car screens. It's really good to watch Mission Impossible on as you roar down the Cunningham Highway.
Bottom line: if you have lots of ankle biters, four friends, pallets of Columbian marching powder and just want to cruise in comfort on any surface, I'd buy a Wildtrak.
Talking of Queensland, our ode to songs about the Sunshine State bought a swift response from Far North Queensland's answer to Timbaland and Missy Elliott, Frank Markert. Frank has written Australian hip hop classics like "Please Mr Packer", an entreaty by an indigenous musician to James Packer to allow him to be the opening, headline act at the Crown Casino Barangaroo – and of course, he also wrote the new FNQ anthem, Kelpie Co-Pilot. Just Google Frank to hear a heart-wrenching story about Nugget, a black Australian kelpie who is the co-pilot and faithful companion of Frank.
Yes, yes, yes. I lost the vote but instead of having an update pic of your correspondent, the editor has agreed to put a photo of some random old person on top of the column. Whoever he is, he is so old he probably came out on the Ark with Noah on his first trip here.
Talking of old persons, the original older person, Michael McMichael, and I shifted to a new Lotus Emira to drive to the Leyburn Sprints. Slightly quicker than the Wildtrak, we've done a deal with Lotus Brisbane's Craig Rose to donate the hire costs to charity with Craig matching our donation.
Anyway, Tricia Chant's right hand person, Chris Nixon, has tracked down the 1949 AGP-winning Delahaye 135CS of John Crouch. Why is this important? The 1949 Australian Grand Prix was held at – you guessed it – Leyburn, and in the 1930s John Crouch, was widely Australia's youngest racing driver. He won the Australian Grand Prix driving a French Delahaye. The car burnt out on its transporter returning from the 1951 AGP in Western Australia. Since 1999 it's been hiding in plain sight in the Mullin Automotive Museum in Los Angeles. Worth $5m now, it should be at today's Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion.