Drive Car of the Year 2024 – Best Off-Road SUV under $80K

Over the next few weeks, we'll be explaining all the categories and contenders for Drive Car of the Year 2024. Testing is currently underway, with the final winners to be announced early next year.

For those families who dream of getting out into the vast Australian Outback there are a certain set of vehicles to choose from that will be able to do the job. Primarily medium or large high-riding  SUVs, with four-wheel-drive, are what’s needed to do the trick.

These basic prerequisites allow families to delve deep into Australia’s bush in a way a regular car simply cannot unscathed.

This market was filled with mostly crude, rough-riding and basic expedition vehicles, until the 1990s. From then the models improved in features, ride quality and performance while still keeping the old tough looks. Buyers then started to fall in love with the Off-Road SUV, and despite the distractions on one side from softer SUVs and dual-cab utes on the other, the segment hasn’t really looked back since.

Because the Drive Car of the Year Best Off-Road SUV Under $80K is, in effect, a new category this year (last year the category had no price cap), everything that meets the definition of off-road and is under the price barrier of $80,000 is eligible for consideration.

There’s a rich variety of candidates in this new category, with truly off-road capable, dual-range 4WD vehicles from the diminutive Suzuki Jimny to the Ford Everest. In between these are single-range transmission models such as the Jeep Compass, Subaru Forester and Subaru Outback.

The odds are looking more favourable for a few models, although we’re a long way out from deciding the winner. You would want to keep an eye out for the Ford Everest, a vehicle developed in Australia with excellent packaging, ride quality and top-notch tech and safety features. Then there’s the GWM Tank, another relatively new brand with a new value-laden off-road SUV promising an industry-leading warranty. Jeep has returned with the Grand Cherokee, a more up-market and more tech-loaded model than the ageing Grand Cherokee it replaced, which just makes it into the new category in entry Night Eagle spec. The Mahindra Scorpio, like the Tank, is another off-roader where value is the key attraction, with a long warranty to boot.

Drive’s rules require that, for a car to be eligible, it must:

The winner of the 2024 Drive Car of the Year Best Off-Road SUV under $80K will be announced in February 2024.

Before then, we will announce the finalists, all of which deliver on the buyer’s expectations of no-nonsense capability for adventurous Australian families. One thing is certain: this category promises to be one of the toughest confronting our 11 experienced judges.

Read more: 

Drive Car of the Year 2024 is a go!
Drive Car of the Year Overview
Drive Car of the Year 2023 winners