trendy, or – as I initially suspected – because
they enjoy challenging the status quo. The
words ‘comfortable’ and ‘reliable’ come up
again and again in conversations with these
seriously car-minded people, and their rigs
cover serious distances. Property assessor Ian
Gumley covers 60,000km a year in his Highline
and reckons it’s the best tool for the job. “I’m a
big guy, and everything else I tried just doesn’t
have the same comfort,” he says. “And it’s easy
on the pocket, too. I just changed the front
rotors at 210,000km. Did the pads, too, but they
could have gone longer.”
The crew enjoyed a couple of days at the
mid-week festival, with three nights of shows
from artists as diverse as Missy Higgins, Ian
Moss and Kate Ceberano to country music
heavyweights Lee Kernaghan, Christie Lamb
and Troy Cassar-Daley. The weather was fair
and the company great.
We expected to go to Birdsville in an Amarok
and be laughed out of a town rammed full ofToyotas, but my theory was debunked almost
immediately. Aussie buyers aren’t abandoning
the brand that helped open up the outback by
any means, but plenty of other rigs are starting
to show up, dusty and dirty, in outback towns.
The Amarok’s penetration will always be
limited in the bush by the lack of a dealership
network, but in terms of being a valid, relevant
product for a tough environment, it deserves a
place at the outback pie-shop table. There will
still be snide asides from the diehards for a few
years yet, but don’t be surprised to see more
and more Amaroks carrying the marks of a
week in the bush turn up in the office
carpark on a Monday morning.BEST ’ROK IN TOWN
YOU’VE bought a new Amarok and you can’t find
accessories for it. Do you wait until someone builds them;
go buy another truck; or get sick of waiting, quit your
high-paying IT job and start your own company importing
and producing accessories for Amaroks? If you guessed
the latter, then meet Ashley Gibbons, who runs Wolf 4x4
from Queensland. South African born, he was exposed to
Amaroks while visiting family and friends, before seeing
them on the roads when he emigrated here.
His business literally kicked off from his bedroom floor
in 2011, and it now runs from a facility in North Lakes,
dispatching bits like Darche rooftop tents, Bilstein shock-
based suspension kits of his own design and loads more.
A self-professed petrol-head, Ashley ditched fast cars
for a Nissan X-Trail (“Yeah ... that wasn’t the smartest
car to start with,” he grinned) before scratching the Amarok
itch with this car, a 2015 Dark Label limited edition.
As the importer of AFN bullbars and parts, Ashley’s car
wears kit from the Portuguese company, as well as a raft of
other kit, including a cleverly hidden Runva winch controller
behind the VW badge, 6mm AFN underbody protection,
17-inch Fuel Vector rims on 285mm BF Goodrich K02s,
Outback Armour suspension, EzyDown tailgate struts and
Rhino Cab canopy, an awesome MSA drop slide and more.
“From a personal perspective, it was great to catch-up
with fellow Amarok owners, some new faces and some
old faces,” said Ashley. “For business, it was great to have
possibly the most modified Amarok out there, which got
plenty of attention from prospective customers ... as well
as the boys from Volkswagen Australia!”
wolf 4x4
Ashley Gibbons has
the kit to dress your
Amarok, just like his
Wolf 4x4-tweaked Dark
Label.1000 http://www.4X4australia.com.au
DRIVEN VW AMAROKS TO BIG RED