Reis in jou dorp rond

So soek ons Goeie Vrydag 'n plek wat na middernag bier op 'n vreedsame manier verkoop.

Daar is vele plekke in Pietermaritzburg wat na die hekse uur jou geld in die polsende donker sal ruil vir iets wat ruik soos bier, maar dese plekke het ook altoos iemand boos en iemand anders wat bloei en kort daarna sirenes wat loei.

 Nie die aard van water-aar wat 'n vermoeide griffelaar na ure se nagskof soek nie.

Maar met al die plekke wat nie TE woes is, so toe soos 'n Barbiedol se,  erm...
oor, verdof 'n dors skriba se standaarde gou soos dou in die winterkou.

Die lat ek in die onderdorp by die eerste aanblik van 'n gesellige vuur op die sypaadjie, neffens sulke helder piek neonligte, vir Abraham vertel ons soeke na 'n bier stop hier.
Dis Pakies, opper Abraham. Pakies is mense wat rou urdu praat en sommer nog onlangs vanaf 'n skippie by 'n versteekte baai êrens aan Wilde Kus afgeklim het. Meestal sonder die beslommernis van 'n paspoort of ander swaar immigrasievorms, verduidelik hy.
Pakies skraap 'n lewe deur aan nanag mense soos ons goete te verkwansel. Daar is baie van hulle... en nie almal is ewe vriendelik nie.
Ja, maar hulle boelieburger kos net R5,99, wys ek vir Abraham.
Dis omdat die "boelie" deel van die burger stellig vanoggend nog gewriemel het toe dit van die N3 af opgeskraap was, meen Abraham. Hy raak soms so donker filosofies.
Vertel ek vir Abraham as die klante wat uitkom so vet is soos die op die kiekie, weet ons ten minste daai boelieburger gee nie jippouguts of anoreksia nie.
Ook maar honger en dors, gee Abraham in en vra vir die oom meer detail oor die boelieburgers. Hulle praat urdu en ek verstaan niks. (Abraham is - sy naam ten spyt - gebore in Zambïe, in Transkei geskoei en toe in Indïe geskool en vele kere begraad.)

Uit die hoek van sy mond vertaal hy. Dit word "vars" uit deep fried vleis gemaak (wat as ons gelukkig is, selfs sterk na boeliebeef sal proe), en vat 'n half uur in die olie. Ons moet in die Bulldog bar 'n bier gaan drink, hulle bring dit seintoe.

Musiek op my ore.
Toe draai die oom om en hoes te lekker oor die vlamme. En die patties. En die pan kokende olie.
Ek sluk swaar en troos myself dis WARM vlamme daai, ;n half ur behoort als dood te skroei. Self TB.

Die Bulldog bar - einste een van die pienk neon ligte, het as take away begin.
Die kroegie is waar die toonbank was. Klein, maar keurig versier met plastiek houtpilare en Indiese krulle goete en so. Die dames wat daar vergader en in die stegie agter die Bulldog bar, wel, "werk", hou hulle eenkant.
(Wat jammer is, want ek wou graag vir ene vra "en wat's jou naampie?" en as sy my vertel om te eff-off, by te voeg "...en jou vannetjie?")

Ek bestel twee biere.
Twee quarts word so vinnig oopgemaak en neergeplak, die 'tssst, 'tssst van hulle doppies klink soos een sis uit hun Edense slang. 

Net R17,50 elk. Ons sluk dankbaar diep en toe die quarts net mooi "hollfs" is, bring die oom die burgers, stomend warm op vars rolletjies, met perfekte slap tjips gegarneer en vir my, die warm tjillliesous wat ek gevra het.

 Bargain, meen Abraham na hy versigtig geproe het.

"Bugn" stem ek saam met kake vol boelie.
Die burgers was so lekker, ons bestel nog.
Hoe dan anders as mens klein geld kry uit R25 vir twee en 'n halwe bier en stomende deepfraaid burger?
Sonder enige probleme van hoes, of so later - let wel.

Wat als net my twee NBste reëls vir reis onderskraag:

1. Kry 'n native guide.
2. Vir die lekkerste ervarings, breek brood met die locals.

Vir almal van julle wat so gelowe, hoop dit was 'n geseënde ooster. Vir die wat nie so gelowe nie, maak soos die plaaslike Hindu bemarker gemaak het toe haar Moslem baas haar vertel sy moet vir die Christene die beauty salon se specials oor Ooster adverteer.

Ook net in PieMbee.

You CAN believe in Friday the 13th

The most deadly antelope on roads
in South Africa

Some say triskaidekaphobia is a bunch of baloney. Well, what about this then?

On Friday, 13 February, 2006, a kudu went through  the windscreen and into the face of Dirk Crafford (49) from the town of Ellisras.

While he now has a lot of interesting scars, he is lucky to be alive, for a kudu bull gets to be moose-sized.

And as any long-distance driver in the northern provinces of South Africa knows, you are just asking for them to come through the windscreen at speed when you drive at night.

Not contend with still having a pulse, respiration and (mostly) functioning brain after the crash, Mr Crafford however decided  to push his luck a little further with a little light litigation. 

His lawyer, Leila Reyneke, sued the South African National Roads Agency SOC Limited for R3.25 million rands for allowing the grass to grow too high on the verge of the rural road, which he said prevented him from seeing that a grey shape moving at speed was about to jump into his face in the black of the night. 

The court could have ask him if he foresaw kudu danger while drivinng in a part of southern Africa where game hunting is the biggest industry  how come did he not take preventative action, like driving slowly?

Mr Crafford said the kudu klapped him so hard, he kurnt remember wa' hapnt.

So Five appeal judges told Crafford to make like a tree and leaf.

It's not the only travel story out there that explains why people can be phobic about trickai deka (tres dois/der tien/ thirteen).
Before that, there was the best-know ill-fated journey of Appollo 13. An oxygen tank on the way to the  moon, forcing the third mission to the moon to abandon. (Check out the movie. Its good.)

Still not convinced? How about the findings of a 1993 study published in the British Medical Journal which compared a few year's worth of accidents from the same region on a Friday the 6th compared to crashed on a Friday the 13th. Their stats showed that despite fewer people driving on Friday the 13th, the number of hospital admissions due to crashes was significantly higher than on "normal" Fridays. Their conclusion: "Friday 13th is unlucky for some. The risk of hospital admission as a result of a transport accident may be increased by as much as 52 percent. Staying at home is recommended."

Whish I knew that in 2002, when while in the only BMW SCL then in South Africa, which happened to be nr 13, a small foxterrier SUDDENLY appeared out of the grass in the median of the Black Rock highway west of Pretoria. 

Normally this would pose no problem, but we were were doing high-speed testing for the former Wiel magazine and the needle was close to 200km /h.

Luckily, Slowhand Danie Botha was behind the wheel and he neither swerved, nor jerked or skrikketed in the least. He just calmly aimed to miss as much of the foxterrier as was possible while operating in that slooooow  mooo speeeed justbeforeACRASH. 

"Bloody fok-sterriers", was all he had to say afterwards.

How to sell engines quickly

This is Marketing 101 to sell engine parts.

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The world will soon have too much oil

A pipeline worker operates valves at the Nahran Omar oil
refinery near the city of Basra in Iraq in this undated AP photo

A DISCUSSION paper released last year by one of the world’s foremost experts on oil, gas, and energy is causing growing excitement in a world where consumers are daily informed that the supply of oil has peaked and is running out.

In the paper “Oil: The Next Revolution, Leonardo Maugeri stated that oil and gas reserves are not running out — but is in fact getting more.

He goes as far as predicting an oversupply of oil and gas in seven years.

Published by the Belfer Centre for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School, Maugeri’s paper showed how worldwide discoveries of new oil and gas supplies are at such an unprecedented level that the conservative projections have supply outpacing consumption by 2020. “This could lead to a steep dip in oil prices,” he stated.

He said in his paper that the price of oil was currently kept artificially high and mooted $70 dollar per vat as a market related figure.

Touting several worst-case scenarios, Maugeri said a new world-wide economic recession; or a drastic change in Chinese consumption patterns; or a sudden solution to major political tensions affecting a major oil producer such as Iran, could trigger a major decrease and even a collapse of the price of oil.

“By collapse, I mean a fall below $50 per barrel for one year,” he said.

He stated the most important point to note, however, is that oil was not in short supply.

“From a purely physical point of view, there are huge volumesof conventional and unconventional oils still to be developed, with no “peak oil” in sight.

He said the full deployment of the world’s oil potential depends only on price, technology, and political factors. As for price, he pointed out that more than 80% of the additional production under development globally seems to be profitable with a price of oil higher than $70 per barrel.

Stressing that future oil prices remain uncertain, he pointed out the oil market will remain “highly volatile until 2015 and prone to extreme movements in opposite directions, thus representing a major challenge for investors, in spite of its short and long term opportunities.

“After 2015, however, most of the projects considered in this paper will advance significantly and contribute to a strong build-up of the world’s production capacity.

“This could provoke a major phenomenon of overproduction and lead to a significant, stable dip of oil prices, unless oil demand were to grow at a sustained yearly rate of at least 1,6% for the entire decade.

Maugeri said in the next decades, a lot of “unconventional oils”, such as shale/tight oils in the U.S., Canadian tar sands, Venezuela’s extra heavy oils, and Brazil’s pre-salt oils will be produced.

While cautioning that more than 50% of the global oil supply will continue to come from a geographic arc stretching from Russia to the Persian Gulf, he points out that Iraq, the U.S., Canada, and Brazil have the highest potential in terms of effective production in the next decade.

He said the most surprising factor of the global picture, however, was the explosion of the U.S. oil output.

“Thanks to the technological revolution brought about by the combined use of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, the U.S. is now exploiting its huge and virtually untouched shale and tight oil fields, whose production — although still in its infancy — is already skyrocketing in North Dakota and Texas,” he wrote.

Maugeri stressed in his paper that the shale or “tight oil” boom in the U.S. was not “a temporary bubble, but the most important revolution” in oil in decades. He added more countries would start hydraulic fracturing over the next decades, which might bear “surprising results”, given the fact that most shale or “tight oil” resources in the world are still unknown and untapped.

“China appears to be the first country to follow the U.S. example. Moreover, the extension of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing combined to con ventional oil fields might dramatically increase world’s oil production and revive mature, declining oilfields,” he said.

Horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing can make even South Africa an oil rich country — if environmental concerns about fracking the Karoo’s rich deposits can be addressed. Chances of this ever happening are slim, however.

For as Maugeri concludes, a revolution in environmental and technologies to curb emissions are required “to sustain the development of most unconventional oils”, along with “a strong enforcement of already existing standards”, rather than massive over-regulation. “Without such a revolution, a continuous dispute between the industry and environmental groups will force government to delay the development of new projects,” he said.

• Source: “Oil: The Next Revolution”, by Leonardo Maugeri, discussion paper 2010-7 Belfer Centre for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School

SA vague on electric transport plans

Tata in India is setting an example for Africa with its
solar-powered charging stations for electric vehicles.

The Technology Innovations Agency in partnership with the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University and other key stakeholders such as car manufacturers, Nissan and BMW, utility Eskom, and other partners such as Sasol launched the E-Mobility Programme.

The programme aims to identify and support the development of new technologies in order to create a commercially viable infrastructure for the use of electric vehicles for both private and business purposes. 

But don't hold your breath.

Beyond selling their cars here, neither Nissan nor BMW spokespersons could answer any questions on what type of skills, and whether other types of evees, like scooters, formed part of the planning. 

The Technology Innovations Agency could only vaguely state it "aims to facilitate the development of the resources and skills necessary to create a nationwide electrical vehicle support network, which will include convenient recharging points."

What's there to create? 

Just imitate any of the plans that are already working in China, Europe, India and North America!

Why, our leaders can even go on another junket to study these solutions, and this time actually bring back something worthwhile.

The obvious plan is to import and subsidise thousands of electric scooters and to train electricians to fix them when (not if) they stop working.

The only reason why commuters have not taken up scooters is their fear of the taxi mafias, whose drivers will kill clients not using them. But if millions of scooters flood the market, the taxis will be outnumbered, and we can free up millions of rands a week currently wasted on taxi bosses to feed and school our youth.

Why not BYD busses or Leaf ambulances?

Because there are only so many bits that can stop working in a scooter, and if the local Auto Association can train auto electrical theory in 10-weeks, we can train hundreds of technices to fix both ice and 'lectric scooters in townships across South Africa in the same time.

What we don't need is another case of our leaders being duped to part with millions, as they did with the two (yes, just 02) Joule electric vehicles that were built.

For our gogos who are raising the nation between having to walk hours between low-paying jobs and taxi ranks each day, desperately need affordable alternatives to get home, not another politically-correct talk shop.

Why I aint selling my fuel guzzler

Roy Maugeri is my new hero.

Roy Maugeri, oil pundit who predicts
an oversupply in seven short years.

One of the world's foremost experts on oil, gas, and energy, he released a study showing that oil is NOT running out... haikona bru: its getting more.

Maugeri's latest paper show worldwide discoveries of new oil and gas supplies are at such an unprecedented level that the latest predictions have supply outpacing consumption by 2020. More on him here.

Would this lead to a drop in oil prices as he predicts?

Nope.

It costs more to get the oil out of the new fields, the new wave of Chinese and Indian motorists all wants to burn the stuff, and besides, oil producers have a fine tradition to uphold when it comes to charging top dollar - using any excuse and exploitative law under the sun.
In short, they still have us over a barrel.

But it may slow down the spiraling increases we have glumly been accepting as a fact of life because the oil-peakers said it was so since the mid 2000s.
A bit.

Based on Maugeri field-by-field analysis of most oil exploration and development projects in the world, his paper suggests that an unrestricted, additional production (the level of production targeted by each single project, according to its schedule, unadjusted for risk) of more than 49 million barrels per day of oil (crude oil and natural gas liquids, or NGLs) is targeted for 2020, the equivalent of more than half the current world production capacity of 93 mbd.
After adjusting this substantial figure considering the risk factors affecting the actual accomplishment of the projects on a country-by-country basis, the additional production that could come by 2020 is about 29 mbd. Factoring in depletion rates of currently producing oilfields and their “reserve growth” (the estimated increases in crude oil, natural gas, and natural gas liquids that could be added to existing reserves through extension, revision, improved recovery efficiency, and the discovery of new pools or reservoirs), the net additional production capacity by 2020 could be 17.6 mbd, yielding a world oil production capacity of 110.6 mbd by that date – as shown in Figure 1. This would represent the most significant increase in any decade since the 1980s.
Read more here
So if we won't pay less, but just more less faster, why am I so happy? For  one, I don't have to sell my fuel-guzzling, genly-rusting slow-but-steady old Toyota Land Cruiser - a car that fits my ego like a metal glove. And two, the mendicant nomads on www.couchsurfing.org can still afford to fly all over this wondrous planet of ours.

Hard racing in rally opener

Champions Robin Houghton and Mark Cronje
defended their title in the first leg of the South African Rally.

Flat-out action: Crews push through crashes, fire and clipped bridges but cannot catch the champs in their fast lil' Fiesta.

SOUTH African rally champions Mark Cronje and Robin Houghton (S2000 Ford Racing Fiesta) dominated the season-opening Total Rally that took place on the South Coast on Friday and Saturday.

Thirty cars entered the first day of racing, which was marked by high drama and sportsmanship. In the worst crash of the race, Enzo Kuun and Guy Hodgson rolled their new Polo within sight of the finish on stage three while fighting for second place with Jan Habig and Robert Paisley in their Basil Read Fiesta. The multi-million-rand Sasol Racing Polo was severely damaged after rolling end over end several times, but Kuun and Hodgson were only bruised.

The crash set the tone for the rest of the rally, which saw Cronje and Houghton stop in the next stage to check on competitors Johnny Gemmel and Carolyn Swan. The pair ended up in the cane when they lost steering in their Toyota Yaris after hot gases from a broken exhaust pipe ignited a power steering pipe and caused their retirement on Friday. They restarted on Saturday under penalty time, but gave a demonstration of the new Toyota’s potential by finishing in the top three in four of the seven gravel stages and winning the final one.

Cronje and Houghton continued their good form on Saturday with six out of nine stage wins.

Former champions Habig and Paisley made it a 1-2 for Ford, finishing 65 seconds behind the winners after starting the final day 34 seconds in arrears. They won a stage on each day and were the only S2000 crew to keep the champions honest.

Third were the Team Total combination of Jean-Pierre Damseaux and new co-driver Hilton Auffray in the first of the S2000 Challenge cars in a Toyota Auris, who did well to overcome a strong challenge on Saturday from the Castrol Team Toyota Yaris of Leeroy Poulter and Elvene Coetzee.

The battle between the two Yaris crews was a feature of the event, with Poulter and Coetzee giving their new rally car an impressive debut, occupying third place throughout the day until they were slowed by power steering problems on the last two gravel special stages.

The Toyota pair picked up a 40-second penalty for lateness after repairing a broken power steering pulley and dropped to fourth behind Damseaux and Auffray with just the 1,3 kilometre tarmac super-special stage on the site of the old Durban drive-in remaining.

After tweeting that he would have to garner whatever points he could in a car that was just not gelling with him, Gugu Zulu nevertheless finished fifth overall with co-driver Carl Peskin.

They were the first of the factory Volkswagen Polos in after a disastrous weekend for the factory-based VW Sasol racing team.

After ending in a surprising third place overall on Friday night, the youngest driver in the rally, Henk Lategan (18), and veteran Barry White clipped a concrete tunnel wall and ended up setting fire to the cane. The flames saw the cancellation of stage eight, the first of Saturday’s six gravel stages, as officials and bystanders pitched in to extinguish the blaze caused by the car’s hot exhaust setting fire to the dry undergrowth.

Lategan followed Gemmel’s example with a spirited fight-back to win stage 12 on his way to 23rd overall and 13th among the S2000 vehicles.

Zulu and Peskin were challenged for fifth by Team Total Toyota’s Mohammed Moosa and Andre Vermeulen in their Auris.

Racing hard, Moosa also clipped a bridge and later put his Auris on its roof after hitting a drainage ditch. In true rally tradition, Moosa and Vermeulen rolled the light car back on its wheels and finished eighth overall and fourth in the S2000 Challenge.

Rounding out the top six and missing a top-five finish by five seconds were Giniel de Villiers and new co-driver Greg Godrich in their S2000 Imperial Toyota Auris. De Villiers caught a 40-second penalty for lateness after replacing a power steering pump.

Former champions Hergen Fekken and Pierre Arries (VW Sasol racing) ­also competed under penalty time on Saturday after they went off the road on Friday’s first stage and were unable to continue.

They finished 18th overall and 11th in S2000, but the second fastest time they achieved in Saturday’s first two stages before they lost time with a puncture on stage 12 was a reminder of the VW Polo’s potential. — WR.

Photo:

Quickpic

National rally champions Mark Cronje and Robin Houghton raced with precision through the cane fields outside Scottburgh in their Ford Fiesta in the past weekend’s Total Rally. INSET: Houghton (left) and Cronje jubilant after holding off a hard-chasing field to defend their title in the first of eight races in the national rally season.

Cane ploughing in KZN rally

Photo: Rajesh Jantilal

The UK’s Ashley Haigh-Smith and Craig Parry
in the crowd-pleasing Super Special Stage of
the Total Rally, held in Durban last night.

IN a rally full of drama and sportmanship yesterday, champion drivers Mark Cronje and Robin Houghton stopped to help Johnny Gemmel and Carolyn Swan, who had done some alarming cane harvesting using their Castrol Toyota Auris.

This just after Enzo Kuun and Guy Hodgson had rolled in their Sasol Polo in the third stage of the Total Rally, which started in Scottburgh and ended in Durban.

They crashed out of the event on stage three in spectacular fashion within site of the finish. The crew was dazed and the car is a write-off. Kuun was lying third at the time.

Morne Janse van Rensburg and Rickus Foure also “went surgarcane farming” in their Polo on the second corner of the stage, according to a tweet by Fourie.

The crashes show just how hard the other teams are racing to try and unseat Cronje and Houghton this year.

Luckily, none of the drivers who made unplanned safaris in the canefields were injured. The various crashes however saw stages 4 and 6 cancelled and of the thirty crews who departed to Durban yesterday, six did not start this morning.

Finishing a surprising third place yesterday was matriculant Henk Lategan. At 18, Lategan is the youngest driver yet in SA rallying. He is racing in Sasol VW car number 17 with veteran navigator Barry White.

In car nr 314, S20, privateers from Pietermaritzburg, Thane Archer and Frans de Wit, aim to have a blast with the big guns from out of town.

Yesterday’s racing culminated with a crowd-pleasing Super Special Stage, held on tar at the old Drive-Inn.

Today’s timed rally is 171 km long, returning to Scottburgh.

The 24 crews whose cars survived yesterday will contend not only with other racers under the influence of red mist, but KZN’s famously slippery and unpredictable dirt roads over 14 gravel stages back to Scottburgh.

The action ends by mid-afternoon today. More details on the stages and spectator maps at www.totalmotorsport.co.za.

Driving Africa's longest road train

The longest road trains in Africa are 42 metres and weigh 60 tons when empty.
A Western Star with Cummins ISX 565 linked to a 7-speed, 14-ratio
Allison auto box which gives non-stop power to the Isus axles,
pulls four side-tipper trailers designed by Afrit and Unitrans Mining.

As reported on sister blog TheDriverDigest, the longest road train in Africa operates at Richardsbay Minerals in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
Operated 24/7 by Unitrans, these road trains are driven on average for 19 hours day by a relay team of four drivers per train.
Each train has a Western Star with a Cummins ISX 565 straight six pulling four Afrit wagons.
Empty the rig weighs 60 tons, which equates to one tone each for the 60 wheels at the back.
With so many wheels, drivers expected the rig to trammel like the devil himself, but a healthy dollop of  science and a little voodoo magic from the Afrit toolbox has ensured that each of the axles under the road trains tracks true.

The now "short" roadtrains still running at Richardsbay
Minerals in South Africa average 19-hour working days.

This means drivers no longer have to plan for a tail-whipping over-reaction on the last wagon after any  steering correction up front.
An Allison gearbox with 14 forward ratios ensure continuous power delivery to the three heavy-duty Sisu axles from Finland.
The elite group of drivers controlling these rigs say the true tracking and continuous power delivery makes  driving these 42,15 metre monsters "almost easy", compared to the older, tail-happy three axle road trains.
"Almost", for turning a 42 metre rig tomorrow requires from the driver to have started planning that turn last week. Once committed to a radius, no corrections can be made to the decreasing corners cut by the 30 rear axles.

Chosing a cheap bakkie

Sister blog THE Driver Digest was recently asked what bakkie was a good buy if one could not afford an entry level Hilux of some R180 000.

After advising the asker on how to choose an engine for Newton metres to move a heavy load, or kilo-Watts to move light loads fast, we suggested three answers. 

Based on mileage and load, readers can pick the best course of action to find a budget bakkie or van that will meet their business needs.

Rent a bakkie 

For ad hoc jobs, just rent it. Commercial vehicles must earn their keep by carrying a payload, and if your need is to have one for a few days in a month, rent it rather than carry all that wear and tear.

There are many companies let out bakkies in South Africa for less than R400 a day excluding fuel and mileage after the first 200 km. But watch out for fly-by-nights who ALWAYS try to sting the renter

after the deal with damages that suddenly appeared. Avoid this unpleasentness by making a thorough inspection of the car before taking delivery.

For those lucky enough to live in KZN, Key Group have good deals  and excellent service.

Kick tyres at an auction

Tata Xenon Fleetline

When it comes to doing long distances with heavy loads, South Africa has two kinds of bakkie drivers, those in a Hilux — and those in “other bakkies”.

The good news is that even a Hilux can be had for less than R180 000 at reputable auctions this close to financial year-ends.

If the badge is not a problem, budget bakkie seekers will do very well to go kick the tyres of a Tata Xenon Fleetline. Then hang around the dealers’ waiting room for a while. Not all Tata dealers give equal after-sales service, and unsatisfied customers will soon reveal all in the waiting room.

Go lesser-spotted for best prices

Mahindra's Bolero

South Africa offers a slew of lesser-spotted bakkies and vans costing well below the R180 000 budget. They range in size from tiny Chinese to proven Koreans.

These days, the only potential drawback of buying a very affordable bakkie or van is that dealers may be few and far between on long-delivery routes. But for doing business in town, the low price of the lesser-spotted Chinese bakkies make them very attractive for even the most hardened Hilux fan.

The Tata Xenon offers the most Newtons for the least money, but by all accounts, Mahindra, Foton and JMC dealers are trying harder to keep their customers pleased.

Vans make more cents

If the load can easily be stolen, we advise a panel van. For delivering in and around town, the Chinese mini vans are a bit cramped for bigger drivers and will baulk at heavy pay loads, but for light, bulky loads, they offer fantastic value.
The DFSK mini van, going for less than R100 000, runs on an oil rag and has a good record in China.

For longer deliveries, either the Kia 2,7D Workhorse or Hyundai H100 Bakkie have long earned the respect of all fleet managers. Both sell for just over R170 000 and offer a very comfortable seating position.

South Africa's top 15 most affordable bakkies and vans

DFSK single cab mini bakkie R79 990

DFSK mini van R99 990

Foton 1-ton bakkie R122 950

Tata 3L Worker R123 995

Chevrolet Utility Club R124 100

Mahindra Bolero R129 900

Tata Xenon Fleetline R136 995

JMC Boarding R139 880

GWM Workhorse R139 900

Daihatsu Gran Max R139 995

FAW Sirius R150 000

Renault Kangoo Express R169 900

Isuzu KB200 R170 200

Kia Workhorse R171 995

Hyundai H100 Bakkie R173 900

For heavy loads, pick from this list:

Tata Xenon Fleetline 300 Nm

Mahindra Bolero 238 Nm

JMC Boarding 235 Nm

Foton 193 Nm

Tata 3L Worker 180 Nm