Keep on Truckin’: 2014 Isuzu D-MAX GT First Drive
Can Isuzu score a smash with its D-MAX GT? Er, what do you think?
Imthishan Giado
Can a pickup be cool? That’s what Isuzu is hoping, with the launch of its ‘sportified’ D-MAX GT at an event in Dubai’s Autodrome. Yes, this is a pickup with racing stripes, hoping to appeal to a ‘lifestyle’ crowd of outdoorsy types.
Isuzu isn’t a brand you hear about too often. The Japanese firm is actually the oldest automotive manufacturer from the land of the Rising Sun, building cars all the way back in 1922. These days though the company largely makes commercial vehicles, a niche at which it’s hugely successful in South East Asia, particularly with the D-MAX.
This is how we arrive at the Izusu D-MAX GT. Packing a 3.0-litre turbodiesel with 134bhp and 216lb of torque, it’s separated from its more plebeian worksite counterpart by the addition of a charcoal grille with red Isuzu badging, 17-inch gunmetal grey alloys and sidesteps, front and rear side skirts and a ‘genuine’ bedliner.
Pity the poor Japanese designer who was tasked with sexing up the D-MAX’s resolutely un-sexy cabin. He’s added two-tone seats, a different gauge cluster and red stitching in an attempt to make this vehicle appear the faintest bit more interesting. Somewhere in Japan, he’s crying hot manly tears into his glass of saki since there’s absolutely no disguising the fact that that this is a commercial vehicle with hard surfaces everywhere and very basic control surfaces. Entertainment options consist of an aftermarket Kenwood stereo and er, that’s it really. No climate control, no cruise control… this is motoring from the Renault Duster school of transport.
As MME’s resident commercial vehicle specialist, it fell to me to test the D-MAX GT at a brief drive on the Autodrome’s club circuit. Manufacturers take note: a race track is not the appropriate venue to test a pickup. With a 4000rpm redline, the turbodiesel laboured mightily to reach 120kph by the end of the main straight; oodles of torque so it doesn’t feel slow, but no real power to trouble the back tyres.
Speaking of tyres, the D-MAX’s ‘handling’ is entirely determined by its stock Bridgestone Duelers, which means there isn’t much. It’ll come around OK if you’re tidy, but push too hard and understeer is your only reward. Brakes are direct in that trucky way and all the controls are light. Too light; the clutch requires almost no effort at all and the five-speed box feels like a wand from Harry Potter’s reject pile. Flatters the novice driver though, and I have no doubt that it’ll all last hundreds of thousands of kilometres. There’s an automatic available too though I didn’t test it, because I’m not dead yet. Having said that: I liked the D-MAX GT. It’s unpretentious, easy to drive, feels very resilient and is resolutely anti-fashion so avoids any discussion of being cool. Hence, in some perverted way, it is cool.
The D-MAX GT will be available across the GCC only with diesel engines but with 4×2 or 4×4 options, the latter sporting a low-range box so for someone out there this could be a cheap offroad donkey. Shame that it won’t be available with the 3.6-litre V6 GM uses in the Colorado; an even bigger shame that we will not get the 2.8-litre turbodiesel four banger with 200bhp and stump pulling 368lb ft of torque. I drove that in Thailand a couple of years ago and it was a great engine, powerful yet economical. So naturally, we don’t get it.
Isuzu reps wouldn’t be drawn on prices for the D-MAX GT: our best guess is that it will launch here later this year under the AED90k mark. You’d really have to want those racing stripes…
