Holden Colorado 7 LTZ 2015 new car review
Its width is 1.9m and a length of almost 4.9m. Hopefully your garage is capacious enough.
Give a guy a black SUV and he has to stand half a mile away so as not to be reflected in the paintwork when taking a photo. It’s one of those things that limits where we can place the cars to shoot them, but there’s no denying that black cars look cool.
- Priced well
- Towing capacity and load space
- Rugged
- Coarse
- Missing some surprising features
- On-road handling
Black is also slimming, which is quite beneficial for the Colorado 7 which has attended Holden’s buffet and gorged itself to a width of 1.9m and a length of almost 4.9m. Hopefully your garage is capacious enough.
Inside and out
It does mean that there is enough room inside the Colorado 7 to do swing dancing with a cat if you fold all the seats down: 1830 litres of space up to the roof, or 1047 litres up to the belt-line. Even with the third row of seats up (yes, this is a seven-seater), there’s still a usable 235 or 205 litres (respectively), which is about the size of the boot in a Suzuki Swift.
If you need more space then put the rest in a trailer. The Colorado 7 is rated up to a 3-tonne braked trailer, although driving instructors usually advise not to tow anything heavier than the Colorado 7 itself, which weighs 2175kg at the kerb but can cope with being up to 2820kg. Add the 3-tonne trailer and you’re almost at the 6-tonne combination vehicle limit for a car licence.
On the road
Having driven the Colorado 7 through some quite twisting rural roads, which is how I got to the photo location, I would be gingerly making my way around if it was approaching six tonnes. Even without the trailer, the Colorado 7 is not only big on the narrow country roads, but its suspension just isn’t designed for rapid changes of direction.
Off the tarmac (which I, unfortunately, couldn’t try), the literature says it’s capable and rugged. There’s a low-range gearbox with a limited-slip differential and shift-on-the-fly 4WD which can more than cope with the 500Nm of torque generated by the Holden Colorado 7 2015 rear147kW, 2.8-litre Duramax engine with its 6-speed automatic gearbox.
This might sound idyllic if you own a boat or even a portable fairground ride, but this engine is noisy. You get what you pay for: $66,990 for a super-sized SUV that will pull any of your toys is quite a good deal, and there obviously has to be compromises in some areas.
Safety electronics are important in an SUV this size and the Holden comes with trailer sway control, hill start assist, hill descent mode and the usual set of electronic stability control features that assist the driver when wheels lose grip or traction. There are six airbags, too.
There are a few missing features, most notably automatic headlights (which are on just about everything these days), and keyless entry. But you do get Holden’s MyLink entertainment system with Bluetooth connectivity, an alarm/immobiliser package, cruise control and a rear-view camera.
Overall
In its black attire, the Colorado 7 doesn’t quite look as big as it is in reality. It’s imposing in its stature, like a Toyota Land Cruiser Prado.
The Colorado 7 is $30,000 cheaper than a Land Cruiser Prado (it’s lacking a lot of the trick electronics and other luxuries like heated rear seats) but it’s no less capable.
It actually outguns many SUVs in terms of power, towing capacity and space, and there’s room for your extended family.
Note: This was reviewed as a new vehicle.
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Richard Edwards 
Kyle Cassidy 