First Drive

2008 Argo Avenger 750 EFI by Rich Mellon

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.

DSC_0591.JPGBlair’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?