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VW T5 Transporter voted best bakkie

The Volkswagen T5 Transporter 2.5 TDI DC is Bakkie magazine’s Best Bakkie 2006.

Bakkie magazine’s annual contest to determine the Best Bakkie was a hard fought affair this year, with the Bakkie’s editorial staff faced with evaluating seven contestants launched in the last year and covering every aspect of the light commercial vehicle spectrum. The field was narrowed down to three finalists in the VW, Nissan’s new Navara and Toyota’s Hilux juggernaut.

“With finalist rivals of the ilk of the Hilux and the Navara, the VW Transporter scooping Best Bakkie 2006 from under their noses at first seems to be somewhat against the odds,” Bakkie magazine Publisher Michele Lupini noted. “But when one takes the VW’s total package from power, torque, practicality and most fundamentally, price into the equation, the VW immediately emerges as a worthy winner…”

The comprehensive Volkswagen Transporter single and double-cab range was introduced into South Africa late in 2005 and while it may not be all that conventional in the South African bakkie sense thanks to its cab-forward design, T5 has a half-century long pedigree reaching all the way back to the original Beetle-based Kombi, and it’s supported by the might of one of SA’s biggest motor manufacturers.

“There’s no doubt that there will be murmuring from the gallery that is the traditional one-tonne bakkie market in South Africa,” Bakkie Editor Steve Mearns admitted. “But VW has hit it on the nose with its new Transporter – it asks huge questions of the others’ pricing strategy, beats their power and torque outputs and while it may look a bit different, that allows it to offer a far more significant load box. Isn’t that what a bakkie is all about at the end of the day…?”

February edition of Bakkie magazine is on shelf now and boasts a comprehensive review of the 2006 Best Bakkie contestants, finalists and the winner, but you’d better be quick, the Best Bakkie issue normally sells out fast…