April 2008 saw Sandi and I back in New Zealand hunting with Kanuka Wilderness (http://www.kanuka.co.nz/ ). Once again our friends at Blair’s Tire (www.blairs.co.nz/) in Geraldine on the south island shipped an Argo to Kanuka for our use in hunting and filming the Outdoor Quest TV series.

Blair’s does a great job supplying machines for us to use and their care is evident when the machine arrives all prepped and field ready, tightly shrink wrapped. As I cut away the shrink wrap I looked for new features on the machine. The first I noticed is the hand lever that actuates a parking brake nestled between the edge of the seat and the right hand edge of the driver’s compartment. A standard feature on European models it is very nice to see it over here on the Avengers. The other new features that stuck out was the seat is now hinged (no more losing them on the highway!) and the hood has new rubber mount catches, the same catches should be used on the windshield.

The real meat of the changes is under the hood, the Kohler Aegis EFI engine and a sophisticated clutching system for efficiently putting all those ponies on the ground. Liquid cooled with 748 cc the V – Twin Over Head Valve producing a whopping 31 hp an increase of 5 hp over the Avenger 700. Speed rating on lands and water remain the same so what does the extra horse power do?

The incredible traction and popularity of the rubber tracks which can and are used in the summer required some extra power and improved clutching. What the end result is for non track users is instant acceleration, on the flat or uphill the machine just jumps. The EFI and clutching produces a big power band that pulls the Avenger through corners or turns up hill that previously saw the machine lug. Now a twist of the throttle and the 750 EFI will increase speed through the corner and uphill, empty or loaded. There is no lugging, bogging or hesitation.

When starting the EFI, you turn the key to on for 5 seconds before engaging the starter. The 5 seconds allows the computer to sample, air, humidity, elevation, temperature and a slew of other variables that affect motor performance. The big Kohler fires up and purrs first time and every time, no rough idle or hesitation.

Kanuka is the perfect place to test a new power train, there are two directions – up and down and neither can be done in anything that resembles a straight line. Having worked and played with Argos for 30 years I take so much of the versatility and maneuverability for granted. Our outfitter was struck by the way the machine easily picked its way through the bush while loaded with three of us and a big Red Stag. “She’s fair nimble.” Was Neil’s comment and it struck me that I hadn’t thought of an Avenger as nimble in a while. For so many years I’ve counted on the Argos’ to finesse the way through problem spots of flat out bull the way over. “Can it run over trees?” were the next words out of Neil’s mouth and I took that as an invitation and quit dodging the 4” to 6” Manuka trees and instead plowed over several big thickets. We crashed out of the last grove and ripped up a 50 degree slope and out onto the quad path, “Very impressive” Neil grinned as he picked twigs out of his beard.

The roomy rear cargo area and it’s seemingly unlimited capacity is a big feature. The Avenger can do the work of several machines at once. On the last day of our stay in NZ Neil mentioned that the next day they would start their annual herd reduction hunt. Winter was nearing and there is only so much game that the land can support through the lean times so each year the old hinds are hunted for meat. I said heck we could use the Avenger to haul the carcasses out of the highlands. Neil suddenly got enthused and said we should try to fill the machine, just to see how many it would haul. So we did. That night we shot 6 deer before we lost light and then proceeded to round them up, one after the other were tossed into back of the Avenger. With Neil riding shotgun along with me, I pointed the loaded machine back to camp. Back at the lodge Neil figured we had room for several more deer and I agreed that it sure hadn’t seemed like the machine was working very much and we had done it all in a single trip.

Once back home I took delivery of this year’s Avenger also a 750 EFI with a full load of accessories including the rubber tracks. The last couple of weeks have seen me hauling hundreds of pounds bear bait a day through muskeg, mud, creeks and beaver dams. The traction produced by the combination of the EFI engine and the rubber tracks has been unstoppable. If you work or play in floodd areas like northern Canada you owe it to yourself to test run the Argo Avenger 750 EFI, it’s at home in the woods from Canada to New Zealand.