Feature

Pick-up truck mega test comparison

Do you think pick-ups are just farm or building site workhorses? Think again. Here, we choose the best of them from the UK’s eight main contenders

The contenders

Fiat Fullback Cross 2.4 180hp D-CAB

List price inc VAT £34,673

List price ex VAT £29,074

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Ford Ranger Black Edition Double Cab 2.2 TDCi 160PS

List price inc VAT £34,495

List price ex VAT £28,796

Mercedes-Benz X-Class X250d 4Matic Progressive

List price inc VAT £36,612

List price ex VAT £30,510

Mitsubishi L200 Barbarian Double Cab

List price inc VAT £34,056

List price ex VAT £28,380

Nissan Navara Tekna 190 dCi

List price inc VAT £33,095

List price ex VAT £28,075

Ssangyong Musso Rebel

List price inc VAT £28,433

List price ex VAT £23,745

Toyota Hilux Invincible Double Cab 2.4L auto

List price inc VAT £33,330

List price ex VAT £27,845

Volkswagen Amarok 3.0 V6 TDI 163 4Motion Trendline

Car reviews

Fiat 500 Hybrid

View all new car reviews

List price inc VAT £30,455

List price ex VAT £25,430

Yee-hah, cowboy: welcome to What Car?’s Wild West London. But before you kick down the saloon bar doors and order yourself a whiskey, let’s put our pick-up truck stereotypes to one side for a minute.

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Once exclusively thought of as the farmer’s vehicle of choice and not much more, this class has come a long way in recent years; in fact, the market is booming.

Why the interest in them? Well, while they are admittedly still a way off the on-road dynamic ability of most mainstream SUVs, the latest pick-ups are better to drive than ever. And if you run one as a company car, you’ll pay a flat rate of benefit-in-kind (BIK) tax that is substantially lower than for most mainstream cars. Leasing rates can be very competitive, too.

So, with ever-improving road manners and wallet-stroking tax breaks, pick-ups can now make a lot of sense to a lot of buyers, and it’s time to take this class seriously.

To find out how they compare, we’ve gathered together every example on sale right now – other than the Isuzu D-Max, which is currently undergoing a facelift – to sort the wheat from the chaff. All eight come in a four-door, dual-cab bodystyle (which is more practical than the single-cab alternative that some offer), and all but one are powered by four-cylinder diesel engines ranging is size from 2.2 to 3.0 litres; the exception is the Volkswagen Amarok, which has a V6. Four-wheel drive is standard in all cases.

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It’s high noon – time to saddle up and see which is the best pick-up you can buy in the UK today.