Is Holden Acadia LT Australian enough?

And why not. Australia is a land of the great outdoors and outback, SUVs fit into that environment like a VB in a stubby holder and Holden is the quintessentially Aussie brand.

However, most of us live in suburbia, most SUVs never go off-road and aren’t actually that capable anyway. And frankly, Holden’s identity is in crisis.

Enter the Holden Acadia. The first Holden to be adapted from a GMC model. It is an American-designed and built seven-seat SUV that fits right into the heart of the light-duty large SUV segment.

It takes on the likes of the Mazda CX-9, Hyundai Santa Fe and the Toyota Kluger and Holden says it’s been adapted and tuned for local condition using its still substantial local engineering capabilities, including the fantastic Lang Lang (Vic) test centre.

carsales.com.au has already covered the Holden Acadia extensively, driving it before it was launched,after it was launched, compared it with the Santa Fe and lived with it for a week on our own terms.

Now, it’s time to go and test it on the open road, beyond the black stump, in the conditions and places the Holden nameplate really earned its reputation. If Holden Acadia is to be a cornerstone of reborn Holden, then coping out here helps.

‘Out here’ is a route we’ve chosen that should fit within Acadia’s design brief, yet test its capabilities. Symbolically, we’re starting from Holden’s shuttered Elizabeth (SA) plant and driving north-east 160km on the Barrier Highway to the small country town of Hallett.

There we’re picking up what’s called the Dare’s Hill Circuit -- a 160km tourist route in the Goyder region of South Australia. We’re driving the 92km gravel section east of the highway. There’s no McDonald’s, no petrol stations, not even much in the way of modern civilisation once you get off the highway.

There are some fascinating things to see that make the trip worthwhile, including 40,000 year-old Aboriginal petroglyphs and the birthplace of one of Australia’s greatest yet unheralded explorers Sir Hubert Wilkins. Wilkins is perhaps best remembered for attempting to sail a submarine to the North Pole in 1930.

For this drive we’re taking the base model Holden Acadia LT all-wheel drive. At $47,490 plus on-road costs, it’s only undercut on price in the range by the $43,490 front-wheel drive version.

While many rivals nowadays come with down-sized turbocharged engines and some plump for diesel power, the Holden Acadia’s sole powertrain is a 231kW/367Nm 3.6-litre naturally-aspirated petrol V6, twinned with a nine-speed automatic transmission.

The big value deal with the LT is its level of standard safety. This includes seven airbags (that cover all three seating rows), autonomous emergency braking, traffic sign recognition, side blind zone alert, lateral impact avoidance, rear cross traffic alert, lane departure warning with lane keep assist, forward collision alert with head-up warning, a following distance indicator, rear park assist and a reversing camera.

One idiosyncratic safety feature is the way the seat vibrates when an obstacle is detected. The rear seat reminder that flashes up in the instrument panel is simpler and just as worthy.

The Acadia’s luxury items include 18-inch alloy wheels, roof rails, sat-nav, cruise control, tri-zone climate control, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, active noise cancellation, three USB ports and a hitch guidance feature to help with towing. Impressive for a base model.

The spare wheel is alas a space saver. Holden’s hardly alone in fitting an SUV with this dubious device but it does undermine that off-road imagery. During our drive it also became apparent the halogen headlights lack power. That’s a real problem at night in country Australia.

Speaking of how things look, Elizabeth is a bit worse for wear these days. While the giant Lion symbol has gone from the plant, there are still plenty of Holden logos to be seen. On the roads nearby VF Commodores are a common sight, a lot of them V8s and a lot of them dropped and rolling on 20s or more. Some of them look tough as hell.

And I’m sensing some connections between the Holden Acadia and Commodore as we clear town and barrel north. Not those lumpy Elizabeth V8s, but the more amiable V6s, with more tyre sidewall, more pliant suspension and a more relaxed attitude. They were great country mile munchers, comfortably eating up the cracked and cragged bitumen at pace.

The Acadia feels a bit like that.

Some of the impression is thanks to the current V6’s throaty refrain and quite stealthy ability to creep to high speed. But mainly it’s the way the body rise and settles over big hits, crests and dips. The new Acadia is floatier than, say, a VF Calais, but there is a tactile relationship. Maybe they’re only distantly related, like third cousins, but there is something there.

It’s the same story for steering and handling, the Holden Acadia is obviously higher and looser but not unpleasant. It feels more at home on our country roads than some SUVs that have been set-up to attempt to defy physics and behave like a passenger car. They fail. The Acadia doesn’t try for the impossible and is better for it.

But not everything is tuned so well. The throttle is hair-trigger, so it’s too easy to squeal the front tyres accelerating from rest. And other SUVs like the Mazda CX-9 and Hyundai Santa Fe are better presented inside. The Acadia doesn’t have their premium look and feel and things like the rocker switch on the gearlever (in lieu of a proper manual shift) are ergonomic misfires.

The trip to Hallett is through drought-stricken countryside -- faded wheat fields; flattened hills; the arms of giant windmills turning lazily.

The small towns out here in dry SA look old and tired. With time to kill people sit on porches chatting. The occasional grand two-storey pub advertise pot and parma deals.

Hallett itself is another strip of aged buildings split by busy tarmac. At the local art gallery Felicity kindly supplies us with a map of the Dare’s Hill Circuit. It’s pretty rudimentary, but then, she tells us, so are the #21 signposts denoting the way.

At least there is a sign pointing to the start of the route.

Leaving town it’s as if we have entered a new world. Our small convoy spreads out, red dust clouds marking our progress between white hills and stony outcrops.

The area is named after the surveyor George Goyder who established in 1865 what became known as Goyder’s Line of Rainfall. He found farming north of the line was almost certainly doomed to failure because of drought. It’s a rule that still applies today and it’s easy to see why.

Ruins dot a landscape that varies from bare and open to rolling hills cloaked in scrubby gums.

At one stage we roll alongside a field where cactus plants grow. Red Kangaroos stand sentinel between them, watching us lope by.

The Holden Acadia is unchallenged by these well-formed gravel roads. There’s rarely the need to swap from front to on-demand all-wheel drive. The three-row SUV’s plush ride absorbs the suspension-compressing challenge of creek crossings and it steers nicely into a slide if traction is lost front or rear.

It’s comfortable in the cabin too; big seats, powerful air-con keeping us cool, no dust leaking either.

Stop the vehicle and step out and it’s an entirely different scenario. The temperature isn’t that high but the sun still feels fierce and swarms of flies assail us. Low red hills and salt bush dominate.

Clearly, we’ve crossed the Goyder line. How tough it must have been to live here. At Ketchowla, the abandoned station coped better with the conditions than the settler who moved out years ago. Some tin roofs have caved in, but the rock walls are sturdy.

Just up around the corner is The Springs. We’ve been told about the petroglyphs here – literally shapes tapped into rock using another rock.

There are no signs pointing the way. Nothing for it but to wander up the creek bed looking for them. The first indication we are headed in the right direction is a screen covering a rock wall. We can see pitted shapes behind the mesh.

Encouraged, we look around and quickly realise there are petroglyphs everywhere. Emus feet seem a particularly common image. It is a shock to see these ancient works of art here completely unprotected.

To think people have come to this place for at least 40,000 years… Mind you, such is the remoteness and inhospitable nature of it, it would never have got that busy.

Our last stop is Mount Bryan and a visit to the cottage where Sir Hubert Wilkins was born. Commendably, the cottage was renovated from ruins and now sits unlocked in the middle of a field, giving us an idea of what Wilkins and his 12 siblings (yes, 12) saw each day.

Information boards at the property’s entrance and inside gives a rundown on a man who was in turn soldier, sailor and aviator and always an adventurer.

Google him, it’s worth the read.

And the Dare’s Hill Circuit is worth the drive… Although to be honest the signage is poor enough we’re not sure we actually made it specifically to Dare’s Hill.

There was plenty there to see out here beyond the highway blacktop most of us spend most of our time driving on.

Maybe next time you’re arrowing along a country highway factor in enough time to take that side-road less travelled. The experience should be an enjoyable and educative one. The Australia not that far from our doorstop is one most of us see less and less of in our busy urban lives.

Well, this is a vehicle that despite its origins and a couple of notable issues (headlights and space saver spare as noted) actually deserves the Holden badge.

There are promising signs that it works on Australian roads; that it’s not just been rolled out with the Lion badge grafted on as an afterthought.

Sure, it may not be the best SUV in its class, but out here on the gravel amid the gums, it feels like it belongs.