A trip down memory lane can deliver some surprises – as musical director Charl-Johan Lingenfelder discovered when he drove from Cape Town to his childhood hometown of Villiersdorp for Isuzu’s Ikhaya Lekhaya campaign.
“I absolutely love being behind the wheel,” says Charl-Johan Lingenfelder as he leans casually against the Isuzu D-MAX he’s driving around Villiersdorp. He’s been navigating the tree-lined streets of the town with Nita, a friend he’s known since primary school, reminiscing about the places they went and the things they did. “Our maths teacher lived over there; that house used to belong to my uncle – he was the caretaker of the church, and also my hairstylist; a friend lived in this house – her bedroom window faced the street and we used to prank her often.”
At the town’s agricultural show grounds, Charl and Nita climb out of the D-Max and walk in through the gate. The show grounds played a significant role in Charl’s formative years. “Back then, this was where I was my most creative,” he reminisces. “In spring every year there is an agricultural show – it’s a huge event, and a time when everyone gets to celebrate the best of who we are as a community. My mother used to enter flower-arranging competitions; she was very old-fashioned and traditional, and I wasn’t very fond of what she did. When I was 15 I bought an entry to the flower-arranging contest… and I won best in show in the junior section. It was a huge deal, and I was mocked by everyone for being the only boy taking part, and also for winning a prize. But I continued with it. The older I got the weirder and bolder I became with my arrangements. I really tried to push boundaries.”
The show grounds, Charl admits, is not only where he explored his creativity – it’s also where he learned to drive. “It was an old farm bakkie, with the gear stick on the side of the steering wheel. Luckily I’ve never had to drive a vehicle like that again – it was terrible,” he laughs.
Charl’s ride today is, of course, considerably more luxurious than that old bakkie but nevertheless, he admits, he felt a bit intimidated when he first saw the Isuzu D-MAX. “I’d never driven a vehicle like it before,” he explains. “I absolutely love to drive – a true holiday for me is when I hire a vehicle and head off, without much of a plan, to wherever the road takes me – but I never thought I belonged in a vehicle like this.
“I thought that ‘4×4’ was something that you studied at a college,” he jokes. “I just did not see myself ever, ever being a 4×4 driver – but low and behold, when I drove off-road yesterday I discovered there were two buttons that I had to click, and the D-MAX then did everything by itself! I was amazed – and I’m still amazed – at what this vehicle can do. In fact, I just wanna go back and do it again…”
Follow the three journeys in the Isuzu D-MAX and Getaway Ikhaya Lekhaya campaign and you stand a chance to win a spectacular five-night holiday for four people to the Indian Ocean paradise of Seychelles. For more details and to enter, please click here. The competition closes at 15h00 on 2 December 2022.
