The new Nissan Navara gets off the line like a bat out of hell.
Two-thousand-and-twenty-one was an interesting year for the South African motoring landscape.
Some things changed, like an acceleration towards greener cars, while others stayed the same like Toyota topping the monthly sales charts.
In this series of 2021 Motoring Newsmakers, The Citizen looks back at the top 20 most popular online stories of the year.
The series is dominated by South Africa’s most popular body style, bakkies, with the new Nissan Navara and Peugeot Landtrek leading the way. The Toyota Land Cruiser 300 was by far the most viewed single model on our website. Other local favourites in the form of hot hatches, fuel efficient hatchbacks, big, mean SUVs, compact SUVs, Mercedes-AMGs and BMW M cars also drew their fair share of attention.
The new Nissan Navara made its highly-anticipated arrival in the second half of 2021. Once a hugely popular choice for leisure use, the Nissan Navara double cab has lost major ground against the Toyota Hilux, Ford Ranger and Isuzu D-Max over the years. Now Nissan banks on the updated version, which includes a single for the first time, to set the record straight.
The new Nissan Navara features bold new styling and extensive suspension upgrades, with a 140kW/450Nm 2.5-litre turbo diesel engine serving on the flagship models. We liked the styling and new suspension, so there was only one thing left to do. Give our test car in PRO-2X guise to Road Test Editor Mark Jones for a high-performance test at Gerotek.
The results left us stunned. The new Nissan Navara are pressing the right buttons to make a dent in the empire ruled be the Hilux, Ranger and D-Max. In fact, it even pips South Africa;s fastest production bakkie, the mighty 190 kW Amarok, off the line.
To read The Citizen’s road test report on the new Nissan Navara, click on the link below.
2021 MOTORING NEWSMAKER NO 2: New Nissan Navara faster than Toyota Hilux and Ford Ranger
The rest of The Citizen’s 2021 Motoring Newsmakers are:
No 3: Toyota Urban Cruiser or Suzuki Vitara Brezza?
No 4: Prado Land Cruiser gets more power
No 5: Peugeot bakkie makes comeback
No 6: Golf GTI smokes BMW 128ti
No 7: Is 190 kW Amarok worth R1-million?
No 8: Toyota Starlet can run on fumes
No 9: This Isuzu bakkie has X-factor
No 10: Mercedes-AMG E63 S sledge hammer of a sedan
No 11: Land Cruiser: Which is better, petrol or diesel?
No 13: Mercedes A35 Sedan the thinking man’s AMG
No 14: Toyota Corolla Cross outsells Polo pair
No 15: BMW X5 M Competition pips Mercedes-AMG GLE 63 S
No 17: Never be late in a Merc GLS 580
No 18: Toyota HiAce 54 years young
No 19: New Ford Ranger revealed
No 20: Toyota Land Cruiser gets stuck the mud
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