Drive Car of the Year 2025 – Best Dual-Cab Ute Under $50K finalists announced – UPDATE
Yesterday at 05:43 PM
Here is every finalist in the running for the Drive Car of the Year 2025 – Best Dual-Cab Ute Under $50K category.
Drive Car of the Year 2025
Now in its 20th year, the annual Drive Car of the Year awards program continues to be the Australian new car buyer's most-trusted advisor.
At Drive, we test drive more than 200 new cars every year, evaluating each against its innate promise to sort the best from the rest. We divide the 400-plus new passenger cars, SUVs, 4WDs and utes into 19 price-banded categories focused on the end-user. Then we analyse the strengths and weaknesses of every car to find the cream of the automotive crop.
Drive Car of the Year 2025 is a go!
Drive Car of the Year 2025: Best Dual-Cab Ute Under $50K
The Best Dual-Cab Ute Under $50K continues to be one of the most popular categories in Drive Car of the Year, with the market seeing the introduction of value-packed automatic dual-cab utes with four-wheel drive – with plenty of features for the price.
For 2025, our judges have selected the LDV T60, the Mitsubishi Triton, and the carry-over champ, the KGM SsangYong Musso as finalists.
The KGM SsangYong Musso Ultimate Luxury XLV is often overlooked, but years of continual improvement have made the Musso the value ute to beat.
Its larger size, long list of standard features, seven-year warranty, and surprising build quality propelled it to the top of the list in 2024, and make it a top contender for 2025.
Priced at $49,500 drive-away with all options, the Musso comes with heated and ventilated front seats, heated outer rear seats, heated steering wheel, a sunroof, 360-degree cameras, keyless entry and start, an auto-locking rear differential, and a long list of safety features.
Read more about the KGM SsangYong Musso here.
While the LDV T60 missed out on the win in 2024, the company has introduced a new variant this year – the range-topping Max Plus, with dual 12.3-inch screens for the digital instrument cluster and the infotainment system, a wireless smartphone charger, upgraded safety features, and blacked-out styling.
Powered by a 2.0-litre twin-turbo diesel four-cylinder making 160kW and 500Nm, the T60 Max Plus is priced from $47,990 drive-away with an automatic transmission and an ABN, and offers tremendous value for money – along with slick modern styling and a seven-year warranty.
Read more about the LDV T60 here.
Finally, there’s the all-new Mitsubishi Triton GLX – the entry-level variant available as a dual-cab, with an automatic transmission and four-wheel drive.
Just sneaking in under the $50,000 cap for buyers with an ABN – as many customers in this category will – the GLX is a fairly straight-forward offering, but delivers a level of build quality you expect from Japanese brands.
Powered by a new 2.4-litre twin-turbo diesel engine making 150kW and 470Nm, the Triton GLX isn’t bursting with features at this price, but there’s plenty to like, including a 9.0-inch infotainment screen with wireless Apple CarPlay, Easy Select 4WD, 360-degree cameras, and a tyre-pressure monitoring system.
There’s also a five-year warranty and five years of capped-price servicing, with a further five years of warranty available when servicing through the Mitsubishi dealer network.
Read more about the new Mitsubishi Triton here.
The Drive Car of the Year Best Dual-Cab Ute Under $50K will be announced on 24 February 2025.
The below was published on 18 November 2024:
While Australia has always been a nation of ute lovers – after all, we did invent them – since the demise of the Holden Commodore and Ford Falcon, Aussies have begun buying dual-cab utes in their droves.
It’s now to the point where, for almost a decade, the best-selling vehicle in the country was a ute – with the Toyota HiLux taking top honours for a long time, before being overtaken recently by the latest Ford Ranger.
But with prices of popular dual-cab utes continuing to climb, we introduced a category in the Drive Car of the Year awards for the best-value models on sale today: the Best Dual-Cab Ute Under $50K.
This category was one of the most popular in 2024, and with good reason – many individuals and families may be in need of a brand-new car, but perhaps don’t have the means, or even the want, to spend up to $100,000 on what is, at its core, a commercial vehicle.
For many, they need something that will do it all: be a workhorse during the working week, drop the kids off at swimming practice after hours, and take the family bush over weekends – maybe with a caravan or camper trailer in tow. And all without overstretching the budget.
It was the SsangYong Musso from South Korea that took the category win in the 2024 Drive Car of the Year, beating out two finalists from China: the GWM Ute and the LDV T60. The Musso impressed Drive judges with its build quality, features, and capability – both on and off the road.
This time around, the Musso – now sold under the KGM SsangYong banner – will defend its title against the new LDV T60 Max Plus, the all-new Mitsubishi Triton GLX, and the recently-revealed JAC T9.
While the T60 lost out last year, the new range-topping Max Plus offers a long list of features – particularly if the automatic transmission is optioned – all wrapped in an attractive and modern design. Significantly different to last year, the T60 Max Plus now runs a new coil-spring rear suspension setup and heavily revised interior compared to last year’s T60.
The Mitsubishi Triton GLX is the entry-level four-wheel-drive variant, meaning it’s a fairly basic vehicle going up against two fully-loaded models. Having said that, the Triton still comes with a decent bit of kit, along with a new body, interior, and twin-turbo engine.
The addition of the JAC T9 to the highly competitive ute category means buyers have even more options to choose from, with the four-wheel-drive ute offered in two variants: the T9 Oasis and the T9 Haven.
Drive judges will be looking for an automatic four-wheel-drive dual-cab ute that can cover dual roles – work and family – while offering the maximum amount of value to buyers for less than $50,000 (excluding on-road costs).
But finding ‘the best’ doesn’t just mean comparing the longest list of features or which has the highest numbers on a page. It’s about finding the vehicle that is more than the sum of its parts.
So, can the new range-topping LDV T60 Max Plus get over the line, will the newcomer JAC T9 steal the prize, can Mitsubishi’s bargain Triton rise to the occasion, or is the KGM SsangYong Musso strong enough to fend off these much younger competitors?
Let us know how you think the pieces will fall in the comments section below, and stay tuned to the website over the coming months as we go deeper into the Drive Car of the Year 2025 awards.
FAQs
Which cars are eligible for this category?
Drive's rules require that, for a car to be eligible, it must:
- Be all-new or significantly updated.
- Be on sale with customer deliveries commenced by 31 December 2024.
- Retail examples be made available for Drive to road test before that cut-off date.
- Pricing cut-offs exclude discounts and limited-time offers.
| Contenders | Not here in time |
| – Cars that are all-new or significantly updated since they last contested Drive Car of the Year. – New categories are open to all cars that fit category requirements. – Last year's winner is an automatic inclusion. | – These cars meet category requirements, but are not due to arrive in time for Drive Car of the Year 2025 judging. |
| JAC T9 KGM SsangYong Musso (defending) LDV T60 Mitsubishi Triton | GWM Cannon (facelift) |
What are the next steps?
The winner of the 2025 Drive Car of the Year Best Dual-Cab Ute Under $50K will be announced in February 2025.
Before then, we will announce the finalists, all of which can provide dual roles of a workhorse and family vehicle to the value-conscious buyers.
Read more:
Drive Car of the Year 2025 is a go!
Drive Car of the Year Overview
Drive Car of the Year 2024 winners
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