A set of muddies can make just about any 4X4 look better. Big tread blocks, open shoulders and a purposeful stance have a way of making the credit card feel surprisingly disposable.
But buying tyres gets more interesting once the vehicle leaves the driveway. The same tread that looks right underneath a touring rig needs to handle the school run, wet highways, long transport stages and whatever’s waiting beyond the bitumen.
Within Pirelli’s Scorpion range, the All Terrain Plus and MTR approach that job with different priorities. Both have a place in the bush. Deciding between them comes down to the kind of driving that fills your weekends, and how far you travel to get there.
What happens between the tread blocks
The difference becomes easier to understand when you look at what each tyre is trying to do with the ground beneath it.
An all-terrain needs to find traction across a broad range of surfaces while keeping enough road manners for everyday driving. Pirelli’s Scorpion All Terrain Plus uses irregular tread blocks, substantial siping and conical stone ejectors, with a design intended to balance off-road traction and low road noise.
That makes it relevant to a trip that starts with several hundred kilometres of highway, follows gravel roads through station country and finishes with a sandy track into camp. The tyre has several jobs to do before you roll out the swag.
A mud-terrain puts more emphasis on the difficult sections. Larger openings between the tread blocks give mud somewhere to go, helping the pattern clear rather than remain packed with material.
Pirelli takes that approach with the Scorpion MTR. Its features include large transverse grooves, a rugged tread compound and a self-cleaning pattern designed to channel mud and gravel out of the tread. It also focuses on sidewall toughness and stability. There’s a practical reason for the appearance. Those big gaps and chunky blocks are there to work.
A muddy weekend can change your priorities
Imagine a 4X4 that spends most weekends exploring steep bush tracks. The destinations are relatively close to home, and the challenging driving is the reason for going.
For that owner, a slippery climb or muddy rut is a regular part of the plan. Giving those sections greater influence over tyre choice makes sense.
That’s where a a mud terrain like the Scorpion MTR becomes worth considering. It’s positioned strongly towards off-road use, with a stated 80 per cent off-road and 20 per cent on-road emphasis.
It also explains why counting kilometres alone can be misleading. A weekend vehicle might still cover more bitumen than dirt reaching its favourite tracks, but those few difficult kilometres are what the owner has built it for.
The same logic doesn’t automatically apply to a touring vehicle. Encountering a muddy section during a fortnight away is different from deliberately seeking one out every Saturday.
Neither approach is more legitimate. They simply ask different things of the tyres.
The long way there matters too
On an extended touring trip, the distance between the interesting bits can be substantial.
There are highway days, fuel stops several towns apart and long stretches where everyone settles into their seat and watches the country change. Tyre noise, ride quality and road behaviour become a bigger part of the experience when you’re doing that for weeks.
Mud-terrains generally bring compromises in areas such as noise and fuel consumption compared with all-terrains. How noticeable those differences become depends on the particular tyres and vehicle, so the category alone won’t tell the whole story.
Still, it’s worth being honest about the driving you’re preparing for. A tyre chosen around one difficult obstacle might spend the following several thousand kilometres doing a very different job.
Pirelli’s All Terrain Plus occupies that middle ground for us: enough off-road focus to belong on a touring 4X4, with design attention given to road noise and traction across different surfaces.
For an owner who wants to cross the country and explore along the way, that balance has plenty going for it.
Why our fleet stays on all-terrains
The Mr 4X4 fleet runs all-terrains because of the big kilometres we do. Our vehicles spend weeks at a time touring, with plenty of distance between the tracks, campsites and destinations you see on screen.
That makes the Pirelli Scorpion All Terrain Plus a sensible fit for our work. We need tyres suited to the whole journey, including the long drive to reach the bush and the equally long drive home.
Change the job and our preference could change with it. If we were spending every weekend tackling local bush tracks, rather than heading away for weeks of touring, we’d lean more towards a mud-terrain such as the Scorpion MTR.
And purely on looks, a good set of muddies is hard to beat. We’re certainly not immune to the appeal.
For our fleet, though, the kilometres get the deciding vote. The all-terrain balance suits how we travel, even if the MTR still catches our eye.
