Workhorse to weekender: 5 utes that can do it all

Fun fact: living in 2025 is expensive (duh). Our housing prices are 3400% more spendy than our parents were. Our grocery receipts have doubled in just under a decade. Fuel is north of two bucks a litre in most capital cities, and have you priced a slab of beer, a pack of darts or a three-piece meal from the Dirty Bird lately? Scandalous!

Buying a new ute is no exception. While they’re commanding higher and higher prices, the value is getting more and more difficult to see. Where the average Joe Blow may have had a few extra bucks at the end of each month to put towards a second rig to tackle the touring and wheeling duties, these days you probably need to spend your hard-earned a little more judiciously to make the juice worth the squeeze.

That’s where we come in. You need a ute for the weekly grind and a tourer that’ll get you to the far-flung reaches of your fav sunburned country. You need something that’ll be easy to jump in and duck up the shops and then a rig that’ll hang with your mates on the A-grade tracks. Oh, and they all need to be the same vehicle. Easy done – here are five of our top picks.

Isuzu D-Max

Cost: $50,700 – $70,500

Look, we easily could have phoned this yarn in and just listed HiLux, Ranger, Triton, Navara and your fifth favourite of the main players. But come on, you’re an Unsealed4X4 reader, you already know about those utes and you’ve probably already read a billionty stories about them. So let’s just get our pick of the mainstays out of the way straight off the bat.

It’s the Isuzu D-MAX. Why? It’s very well priced compared to most of the others and where it outshines the other value options is in the engine. The 3.0L turbo-dizzle 4J is still one of the best engines ever put in a 4X4. Yeah, out of the box, they’re not that flash, but with a few grand spent in the right places, they absolutely decimate. Some suspension, some bar work, a touring mod or three, and you’re just about ready to make easy work of 99% of tracks in the country.

Are they the best? No. Are they the flashest? No. Are they going to make you look way better to whoever you like to look good for? No. But they’re a solid, dependable, honest rig with an engine that can be built to party hard, then back up on the early shift with no probs, which is why they’re our pick of the usual suspects.

RAM 1500-2500

Cost: $119,950 – $180,000-ish

Ah yes, our pick from the American contingent: the big dog RAM trucks. Either the 1500 or 2500 will happily tow your concreting trailer around from site to site happily during the week and chew up endless outback corrugations when it’s time to hit the fun terrain. The big question is whether the huge towing potential and 6.7L Cummins turbo-diesel of the 2500 is worth the extra sixty gorillas to you. For us, it absolutely is. If we’d just sold a house, a RAM 2500 with a camper on the back would be hard to beat as a round-Straya bus we reckon.

Thanks to their popularity in the US, there’s not much that you can’t buy for them mods-wise. And as for power-ups, 400-500hp (and more) can and has been done without too much effort. While the 2025 RAM 1500 model’s twin-turbo straight-six Hurricane 3.0L petrol engine is still in its early days, the fact that it comes from the factory with 540hp is a great sign.

The RAMs are comfy, they’re reliable enough and the Cummins is surprisingly economical, even with that near-seven-tonne towing capacity the economy is pretty darn decent. As soon as we can find a buyer for this Kidney we’ll have one.

BYD Shark 6

Cost: $57,900

The cheapest on our list, the BYD Shark 6 is gaining a lot of fans all over the country real quick. But let’s get this out of the way early: This is not a HiLux or Ranger competitor off-road. Despite the impressive combined power and torque figures from the hybrid petrol-electric powertrain (430hp, 650NM), the BYD still suffers when attempting to put that power to the ground. Nor is it that fuel-efficient on the highway and its towing (2500kg) and payload (790kg) are lagging a fair way behind the top dogs in the segment.

But, and it’s a big one, if you tend to do the majority of your driving around the `burbs and don’t carry the entire Snap-On catalogue on your ute tray and only need to tow your 1300kg rear-fold camper a few weekends a year, then this thing starts making a lot more sense.

Is it a heavy-duty, rock-crawling, track eater? No, but that’s not what the majority of us are chasing these days. If your speed is more at the SUV end of the spectrum and you’re looking for something safe, large and specced-out that can carry the family’s gear away for the weekend for a minimal outlay then these are well worth a look.

GWM Cannon Alpha Ultra

Cost: $66,990

If off-road prowess is important to you, but you still like the idea of a plug-in hybrid 4X4 (and don’t want to stump up $95K for the Ranger), then let us introduce you to the GWM Cannon Alpha Ultra PHEV, which we’ll refer to as the Cannon, because damn.

Mechanically similar to the BYD Shark, it uses a slightly larger turbo petrol engine (2.0L), a larger battery pack and unlike the BYD, a single electric motor that spins a transmission and transfer case to front and rear locked differentials. This means it uses slightly more fuel but gives it tonnes more traction on the slippery stuff. It does, however, suffer from similarly low towing and payload capacities as the Shark.

The interior and safety appointments are all top-flight, and if this were a Japanese or American ute, you’d expect to be paying a fair chunk more for this level of refinement.

Look, we won’t bang on about the advantages and disadvantages of plug-in hybrids. Chances are you already know them, and if, like many others, you don’t tow or carry huge loads when on wheeling trips, then the Cannon is definitely worth a test drive and an arvo of your time.

Hino 817 4X4 300

Cost: $81,134 and upwards

Ok, let’s get serious. You carry lots of gear, you tow heavy and you want to cover big kays. It’s time to grow up Peter Pan, you don’t need a Cruiser or Patrol-sized 4X4, you need a truck, baby. While the offerings from Isuzu, Fuso and Iveco are all nice, the Hino 817 4X4 gets our nod for this list because it starts at around ten grand cheaper than its closest rival, which gives you more cash to play with for mods.

With 7500kg GVM and 11,000kg GCM and 4500kg towing capacity (all of which can be downgraded for car-licence spec, but why would you?) there’s not much you can’t take with you or lug behind you. The six-speed manual can be upgraded to an Allison auto, but it’s like $20,000, and for that money, you could probably find a good second-hand pop-top trailer, sell the axle and put it on your tray for an easy camper conversion. Or maybe that’s just us. You do you.

With a single rear wheel conversion, some 37-inch rubber (standard size, so no engineering worries) and super-low crawl ratios, these really do take minimal work to turn into take-anywhere, tow-anywhere rigs. Just quietly, we reckon you’ll be seeing more and more full-on trucks (as opposed to the American “trucks”, or those poor misinformed souls who call their Triton “my truck”) out on the tracks in the coming years. Being able to pull a big plate boat or a caravan that can house an entire clan while still being able to load up the tray with dirt bikes and camping gear just makes too much sense.

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