If I had to choose a vehicle to drive through Africa - or through the icy tundra of the Arctic - there's no question I'd opt for Land Rover's Discovery 4. Preferably the five-litre V8 HSE.
As it is, the mighty beast was completely wasted on my day-to-day home-to-school-to-work drives. And even the challenge of navigating it through stop-start traffic and outsmarting Durban's taxis wasn't enough to fire up the Disco's potential.
I'd have loved even a short overland safari through Botswana and Namibia, for instance, with perhaps a start up an icy Sani Pass via Lesotho...
But tar and cement it was, with nothing more arduous to tackle than the speed humps outside school.
The 2010 upscaled Discovery 4 is a breathtaking example of the incredible engineering prowess of Land Rover's engineers and designers. At first glance non-car fans might think it's exactly the same as the previous model but it most definitely isn't.
There are those brilliant Xenon-adaptive and LED headlights, a completely different front grille, revised and sleeker bumpers, and big fat 19" alloy rims. Also, a superb choice of exterior colours.
I was piloting the automatic five-litre V8 (from R720 000), but if your budget is tight, you can go for the less expensive (it's all relative!) three-litre V6 turbodiesel, from R645 000.
We loved the power of the Disco, even as a suburban taxi. Output is 276kW at 6500rpm and 510Nm at 3500rpm and it's no slouch when you're in a hurry, with a claimed top speed of 195km/h, not too shabby for a behemoth tipping the scales at a little less three tons!
I felt like an astronaut sitting at the controls, which are there in buckets-full. You've got a five-camera park assist system (all women love this), touch-screen satnav and that wonderful terrain response system that means you can just turn the knob to adjust the vehicle's suspension, differential, engine management and power-steering settings.
So if you're ascending an icy pass, for instance, set it to Snow, and you'll have this incredible grip and agility, passing stationery vehicles with a smile and a wave and no effort. Or you're confronted by boggy, muddy terrain: another turn of the dial.
You can lift the suspension to avoid those rocky obstacles, too, ultimately providing a worry-free drive over the toughest and tackiest terrain.
Inside, it's all leather and lights and comfort and space: apart from an electric sunroof providing extra light and airiness to the front seats, the Alpine roof extends the glass area to passengers in the second and third rows (it's a seven seater), while its combined reflective properties and interior sunblinds keep the cabin cool.
Driving the Discovery 4 was a pleasure, its advanced air-suspension allowing me to sail over our potholed roads with nary a flinch nor a bump. It's big, though, and I had a moment or two of anxiety with the odd awkward parking space.
But then this isn't what the vehicle's designed for. It's not really a mom's taxi or a city exec's runaround; it's an ultra-luxurious working beast, one which truly shows its colours in the bundu, yet which looks equally good sallying forth over your boggy equestrian country estate...