Let’s get this out of the way right at the start: the chances are you either love or hate the thought of owning a pick-up truck as your family car. There doesn’t seem to be a grey area when it comes to this decision. Either you’re completely cool about piling the kids into a vehicle built for a farmyard or building site, or you’d sooner feed those same children raw sewage.
The fact you’ve made it to the second paragraph suggests you fall into the former camp. That’s definitely where I belong, though my wife is yet to be persuaded. She strongly discouraged me from taking Mitsubishi’s L200 Trojan test car to a family baptism. Why rock up in a commercial vehicle, she asked, when you could take your respectable Volvo?
I could have answered this by saying that even the most commodious estate car struggles to match the load-lugging capability of a pick-up like the L200. The trouble with the one I had on test, though, was that the back was open to the elements. For those new to the pick-up market, it’s possible to buy a sliding cover for the loading bay, or a hard-top that more or less doubles its capacity.
My truck had neither of these things, which rendered the huge loading area about as much use to the world as Jedward. I couldn’t put luggage in there because it would get soaked in the rain. Ditto my wife and other assorted family members. Nor could I dump the dogs in there, for fear that they’d jump out somewhere along the A303. Ditto – again – my wife and other assorted family members.
With some kind of cover, though, a double-cab pick-up becomes the answer to your load-carrying prayers. There’s room in the back of the L200 for all the luggage you can imagine, as well as a pack of smelly dogs, a few surfboards and the odd mountain bike or two. And the beauty of it all is that you needn’t worry about soiling the interior of your car, because all the mucky stuff is neatly contained in the loading bay.
Now you might expect to pay a price for such convenience, in the form or a raggedy, rattling van-like drive. But the Trojan manages to convince as an SUV when you’re behind the wheel, giving you the benefits of a comfy – in this case leather-clad – interior, positive handling and surprisingly easy manoeuvrability. Sure, you know you’re in a big old truck – but for many people that’s exactly the appeal of owning a vehicle like this. It makes you feel kind of, well, manly.
Thinking about reducing your tax burden isn’t quite so macho, but it’s another good reason to consider buying a pick-up. If you run your own business, you can claim the VAT back on the purchase. Even better, favourable BIK rates mean that you pay as little as £600 per year if you run one as a company car. Even 40 per cent tax payers will only have to shell out £1,200pa for unrestricted private use.
Ultimately, the benefits of pick-up ownership speak for themselves, and the L200 Trojan is well worth considering if you want a mid-range example of this sort of vehicle. Whether you’d actually consider buying one depends on how you feel about using a commercial vehicle as your family transport… and, I suspect, how much attention you pay to your wife.
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About the author
Tim Gibson is a freelance journalist who writes for publications including The Daily Telegraph, Civil Service World and Total 4x4. He is a founding Director of The Writing Hut Ltd, a copywriting agency based in South Somerset.
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