Take the Fiat Fullback pickup, for instance, that is really just a rebadged Mitsubishi Triton.
Fiat and Chrysler have both been in and out of bed with an extraordinary number of other manufacturers over the last 50 years, and with step-siblings like Abarth, Fiat, Jeep, Lancia, Maserati, Mitsubishi and Ram Trucks all part of the big, happy family today the future looks promising.
The arrival of the Fiat Fullback in South Africa at the end of 2016 was rather unexpected though because the Italians got to launch their bakkie here as a brand new Fiat one-ton pickup some months before Mitsubishi could start flogging their own version of the same vehicle as the fifth-generation Triton.
The Fiat range was initially low key and used older, somewhat dated engines while the Mitsubishi line-up comprised just four upmarket 4x2 and 4x4 double cab pickups. They all used a very refined and powerful new 2.4-litre four-cylinder turbodiesel engine that was good for 133kW/430Nm.
Since the Fullback's launch, however, the company has quietly upgraded the range including a refined new engine, and that was what lay beneath the bonnet of the Fullback 2.4 D-iD Double Cab 4x4 LX that came my way in April.
The Fullback is, like most of its double-cab ilk these days, a large lump of metal and plastic. It's considerably lighter than the two class leaders; with the equivalent model Ford Ranger weighing 280 and the Toyota Hilux 170kg more.
The interior of the LX is luxurious and classy-looking, with decent upholstery and switchgear. There's auto-locking when you drive off, electric front seat adjustment, a useful rear-view camera, steering-wheel audio and cruise-control buttons and switches, leather upholstery, and auto-on headlights.
Ride quality is a little choppy when the bakkie's unladen, but settles down nicely when you take a little cargo and a couple of people on board, and the steering is good with lots of feedback. The engine is a winner. If you dig in the spurs it'll get you to 100km/h in a shade over 10 seconds, and the top speed is claimed to be 179km/h, but there's plenty of punch in the midrange so there's no need to play boy-racer in almost two tons of bakkie now, is there?
One year ago I took the latest Mitsubishi Triton on a tour of the KZN battlefields, and the feature that impressed me most with that was the comfortable ride and low noise levels. The Fiat version is much of a muchness with that, which means it's somewhere near the head of a very competitive class.
Curiously, at the end of 2017 the Fiat as tested cost R499 000, which was R60 000 cheaper than the Mitsubishi version. On the Fiat website today the price for the same vehicle is now R559 000, while the Mitsubishi site advertises their equivalent at R559 995, but with a "special offer" available at R479 995. There's nothing like competition from within!
