LIGHT COMMERCIAL TEST
New-design vans are returning to longer bonnets to improve impact safety.
BEST OF 2021 Highlights from 2021 included the large Isuzu Daily van and the standard-size Mitsubishi Express to the American ‘truck’ styling of the latest Nissan Navara and the more streamlined shape of the Mazda BT-50.
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t’s round-up time of year again, our second since Covid-19 arrived and threw a grenade into life as we knew it. Overseas, illness, lockdowns and closed borders acted like the proverbial pebble dropped into a pond, and even as New Zealanders spent much of the year living what passed as normal life in this brave new world, that pebble’s ripples still impacted local business. Closed borders don’t just stop tourism, but goods. Covid-19’s effects moved
Story and photos by Jacqui Madelin
like a malicious Mexican wave through overseas manufacturing strongholds, resulting in shortages of components that affected the production of everything from cameras to cars and trucks. At the same time, reduced ship and air traffic cut back on the arrival of goods – to transport cargo, or those needed to keep the country’s commercial wheels rolling. All that impacted New Zealand Trucking, too – if nothing else because our team of writers couldn’t
access the usual array of newly launched vehicles. So, this year’s wrap covers a smaller range than usual, in a sector of the market never bustling with new vehicle launches: vans often have a 10-year lifespan, considerably longer than cars or even utes. Our comparo is, of course, no less valid. Any business buying a new vehicle is looking for the best at its budget, and when it comes to vehicles, best usually means newest – especially now a vehicle is as much a
Mitsubishi Express adds some rear-end design interest to a basic cube with the vertical light cluster, while Iveco can’t disguise its added height.
