The 2020 Motoring Press Agency Car Of The Year goes to...

As stated, this was only the first phase of the test drive. After a very expensive refill at Nanyuki, we headed off into backwoods towards Lake Alice on the slopes of Mt. Kenya and... suddenly it was all good.

Where we expecting low fuel consumption - gentle driving on good roads with thin traffic - the Defender shocked us with its cruise-ship wastefulness, but where we expected the economy to be really poor - in first-gear, low-range, high-rev applications that typify a stereotypical off-road sojourn, we were doing better than 7.7km/l (these are based on quick calculations on my part, and not on the on-board digital readout which I rarely take seriously anyway). What gives?

We will never fully understand what happened there, but we are glad the Defender vindicated itself because it really is a very good car. On tarmac it drove and rode as well as its fancier stablemates (read Range Rover) and off the road it wouldn't get stuck no matter what we threw at it, and we threw a lot at it. There will be media covering this test coming up on my various social platforms, so keep an eye out.

The 2.0-liter engine is smooth and torquey and makes nice turbo sounds, but once you decide bankruptcy is not so bad and decide to enjoy yourself by fully opening the taps, you very quickly discover that perhaps a few more cubic inches would not be out of place.

The vehicle is not slow and it shows no signs of struggling, but one cannot help but feel that a bit more power would not be out of place in this vehicle. Packing all that tech and having all that capability surely deserves the kind of firepower that garners fear and respect from other road users, no?

(Of course there are more powerful variants of the Defender. The current flagship is a 3.0-liter twin-charged six-cylinder good for 400h,p but there are V8s coming. If you are spending telephone numbers on a car, you may as well go the whole hog rather than limiting yourself to the capacities and cylinder counts of used Japanese hatchbacks. No offense to the Corolla Cross, which is a crossover, not a hatchback.)

The Defender put on a good show, more so given that we didn't want to like it. The technology and the asking price felt like betrayals of the Defender legacy, but once you encounter this vehicle, sit in it, drive it and find out what exactly it is capable of, there is only one emotion it will evoke: admiration.

Well in, soldier.

The champ is here; The Mahindra Scorpio Pik-Up Double Cab

This is the second vehicle on this list that turned the tables on us. The Mahindra name does not carry a good history here in Kenya for those of us who remember the early '90s, the deliberately misspelt "Pik-Up" name sounds less edgy and more like a troll, the naming after a Zodiac sign feels like it belongs to a different class of vehicle and the overall design could do with a little tweaking here and there. It is very easy to dislike this car based on preconception. It is very difficult to criticise this vehicle as an objective observer. Let's start.

It comes with something called an M-Hawk engine packing 2.2 liters worth of diesel burning capacity. We have encountered this engine before, in the Genio pickup that I reviewed several years ago, and it is still as impressive now as it was then.

The paper says it's good for 140hp, but we'll get to that in a moment, let's first say that the engine capacity, fuel type, platform and presence of a turbo places it directly into the firing line of the following vehicles: the Volkswagen Amarok, the 2.2-liter Ford Ranger and the Toyota Hilux with a 2GD engine. This is a very intimidating lineup to find oneself in, especially if the badge you are boasting says "Mahindra". This is where the fun starts.

While the rest of the trucks cost more than 6 million shillings each (the Ranger's price can get to eight figures if you opt for the Raptor spec, it is just ridiculous), the Mahindra is lurking at a price below half of that. Yes, a new Scorpio with plenty of warranty and no miles on it at all will cost you KES 2.8 million only. You read that correctly: a brand new Scorpio costs less than what these other pickups cost used from Japan or Singapore or wherever.

Suspicion arises at the low price and the tarnished brand image. Are you buying junk? No, you are not. Let's get back to that 140hp figure.

It seems puny in writing but believe it or not, in that entire lineup, the only truck that will outrun this Pik-Up is the Amarok. The rest fall in line behind the funny-looking utility from the great subcontinent. The Scorpio is fast like you cannot believe, aided and abetted by a 6-speed manual transmission controlled by a buttery and well optimised clutch action and discrete shift mechanism via a short-ish gear lever which is a far cry and dramatic improvement over the telegraph pole one had to wrangle in the old Scorpio and Genio pickups (Pik-Ups?)

It doesn't feel like a Mahindra, is what I'm saying. It doesn't feel like it should cost less than half what the competition does. What it feels like is solid, robust, powerful, smooth, torquey and fast.

Very fast. it gets to 140km/h in 5th without over-revving, which is shocking for a diesel car, and makes you wonder what will happen if you go into 6th and keep your right foot planted. A massive crash, most probably. Please drive responsibly. Ease off the throttle, go into 6th and stick to speed limits.

The interior is modernised but let's be honest, it is no match for the German. The controls are intuitive, uncluttered and ergonomics are fair, but of course there are problems. They're not big ones, but there are problems all the same.

The USB slot is hidden next to where the gear lever would be when you go into 5th gear. I found it the day I was giving back the car, having spent an entire week and covered 1400km with it. Interesting.

Secondly: storage space. We need more cubby holes and shelves and compartments, more so given that this is our new road trip favourite so we need places for all our phones and chargers and power banks and energy foods and flavoured drinks.

For a vehicle this cheap and supposedly rudimentary, it is far from it. There is Bluetooth connectivity, all the windows are powered, alloy rims are standard, colour coding is at par with that 10-million-shilling Ranger and overall, value for money doesn't come any better than this. As we extolled the virtues of the Defender so shall we extol the virtues of the Scorpio.

The default setting is 2WD, with electronically controlled shift-on-the-fly capability to go into 4H, but obviously you need to come to a complete stop to go into 4L. Funny things happen around this time: we engaged low range a few times and noticed that the time taken to go into and out of 4L was not consistent. Sometimes it happened quickly, sometimes it took so long we wondered whether the vehicle was broken. Teething issues.

At one point the headlights went off on their own and no amount of wiggling and twirling the indicator stalks would bring them back on. Rebooting the car solved this problem. The passenger door also acted up after a wash and would only open from outside.

Thumping the door frame solved this problem. There is an odd drop in torque in second gear that could catch out the unwary causing the vehicle to stall. Improving driving technique solved this problem.

As you can see, the vehicle is not perfect, but what vehicle is? The Mahindra is cheap... I'm not going to sugar-coat it and say “affordable”, the vehicle is damn cheap, simple as that. It is also very capable: yes, we went into and out of low range a few times, but those were test protocols to see if and how it works, we never really needed 4WD at any point.

I got a colleague of mine, an off-road expert, to try and get the vehicle stuck and he failed spectacularly. Deliberately foolish driving into mud pits and rutted tracks did not faze the vehicle at all, though full disclosure: I had installed mud terrain tyres and changed the shocks for heavy duty affairs before embarking on the test, so these played a role as well.

I am no car constructor but I strongly recommend the changes I made: heavy duty shocks and heavily treaded tyres. This car will go anywhere, as it is meant to, and handling was impressive for a vehicle this thin and this tall. There was no understeer and body roll was minimised.

I took it on the Great Run and became violent with it to the point we caught air and went sideways severally and it took it all in stride. Not once did we need 4WD, but we needed low range to go up a very steep and rocky hill, and being a manual, it would be silly to attempt it in high range. You can see where the excitement is coming from.

So, there it is, our 2020 Motoring Press Agency Car Of The Year: the Mahindra Scorpio Pik-Up Double Cab. It is not exactly pretty - a redesign would do it an aesthetic favour - and it still has some manufacturing defects, but the price is unbelievably low. Score one.

The vehicle is surprisingly well made given what it costs and the badge it carries. Score two.
The M-Hawk engine is a global marvel. The smoothness, the torque and the variable geometry turbocharger transforms this underdog into the runner-up of a fiercely competitive class of vehicle. Score three.

The capabilities are amazing. The rear overhang looks like a limiting factor when going off-road, and we managed to scrape the rear valance on some uneven ground, but those conditions were extreme, and a lift kit will increase the departure angle anyway. Score four.

From an industrialisation standpoint, the vehicle is locally assembled at the AVA plant in Mombasa. The president himself ensured this. Do I need to explain again the economic upsides of building a vehicle here? The job opportunities and the technological advancement accorded to our citizens? Do I? Score five.

On a more subjective note, those that mourn the departure of the OG Defender can get this rig if they are hung up on the rugged strong-man characteristics of the dearly departed.

The Scorpio looks like the old Defender if you really squint or if you are drunk, it has the bare simplicity of that old warhorse with just enough creature comforts to make life more bearable, and it has better handling and a tighter turning circle (the old Defender was terrible at this). Score six?

But the price. A 4WD double cab, diesel, turbo, with middling specs, zero mileage and three-year warranty that will outrun most of the competition for less than the price of a used Prado. Everything else pales before this.

Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for one of the biggest shockers of the year 2020.