2025-26 Wheels Car of the Year Contender: Isuzu MU-X

What we have here, ladies and gentlemen, is a bona fide time machine. Climb inside, press the start button. When the engine is stone cold, you’ll sense a small delay as the glow plugs warm the internals sufficiently to convince high-pressure diesel to explode under nothing more provocative than mechanical compression. And within seconds, you’ll be transported back to a time when NVH stood for Not Very Happy.

Pull the shifter into D, tip in some throttle and prepare for the aural and tactile onslaught of a truly
old-school diesel experience. There’s vibration and there’s noise. Haul on to the main road and feed it some more throttle. Now you notice that while there’s a distinct sense of relentlessness about the acceleration, relentless is not another word for enthusiastic. Try dogged, and even that word has a limit of about 3500rpm, at which point, the 2.2-litre four-banger is about done.

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In the world of marine comparisons, if a Mazda MX-5 is a small ski-boat, an Audi RS6 wagon is a cabin-cruiser and a Yaris GR is a jet-ski, the Isuzu is an ice-breaker. And, possibly in this company, a deal-breaker.

The eight-speed automatic does its best to iron out the peaks and troughs of the turbo-motor’s delivery, but there’s no hiding the bronze-age DNA lineage (relatively speaking) of the 3.0-litre engine, considered to be one of the better modern common-rail diesel engines. Well, as they apply to dual-cab utes, anyway.

And that’s the key to understanding the MU-X. Not to mention its $62,990 plus on-roads sticker. Strip away the marketing and what you’re left with is an Isuzu D-Max dual-cab with a station-wagon rear section instead of the brickie’s or sparky’s canopy. True, Isuzu has gone to the trouble of re-engineering the box-of-hammers leaf-sprung, live rear axle to produce a coil-sprung independent set-up. But painting a shipping container bright red does not make it a Ferrari. Dig?

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So, you’re driving a truck, okay? If you can live with the unsprung mass and tall ride height, and the spring rates that go with that, and you don’t mind slow steering, a big climb up inside, the noise and the lazy dynamics, then there is one thing the MU-X offers that nothing else in the COTY field can. And that is being the direct descendant of a 4WD with the unquestioned ability to tackle pretty much any off-road journey you can name. Simpson Desert? No problems. Cape York? Victorian potholes? No dramas whatsoever. The Isuzu will gobble it up and tip you out at the other end like nothing happened.

Which brings us to the reality of all this. If you do wish to strike out and see the bits of Australia that only a capable off-road four-wheel-drive can take you, then the Isuzu is a contender for your dollars. The question is whether Aussie buyers will adopt the 2.2L as hungrily as they did the 3.0L?

But, frankly, there are other makes and models that offer the same rock-hopping abilities without quite the same compromises.

Plenty others will likewise reveal this nation’s heartland but will do so with more refinement and sophistication. You don’t necessarily need a time machine to visit history.

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Specs