Zolile Dweba next to the Nissan Navara Warrior by Premcar.
Image: Supplied
Zolile Dweba makes cars, bakkies in fact, but he also makes compelling videos too. In fact, his skill behind the camera, and in the editing suite, was so good that he beat off all his colleagues at Nissan South Africa to win a weekend away with his girlfriend in Sun City in a Navara Warrior by Premcar.
It was a dream come true for the maintenance coordinator in the body shop. A trained millwright, he had been working at Nissan for almost four years when the company launched a competition last December to find an ambassador for the Pro 4X Warrior by Premcar, the halo Nissan Navara model.
“I never dreamed I’d get the opportunity to actually drive it one day, because we build them we don’t drive them,” he said, so when the call went out he thought he’d give it a bash.
Although he considers himself a shy person, he had built up a reasonable following on social media under the handle Mzolistaomazo by blending his die-hard support for Orlando Pirates with the unique outfits he wears to the Buccaneers’ games.
Leveraging that, he crafted an introductory video as his entry, which enabled him to make it onto a shortlist of 10. These were then given a second quest to shoot an advert for the Warrior with four of them going through to the finals.
“It was a bit of a challenge. I had to do something that would catch the attention of my fellow soccer fans. I started with the concept of using a brick like the one I played with as a child growing up in Diepsloot as a toy car.”
From there the video segues to a man sitting in the car seat dressed as a priest, Dweba’s alter ego at Pirates’ games, listening to the game on the radio. His team wins and he drives off in raptures though puddles and rough ground, effortlessly in his bakkie.
It was a runaway success; liked 8 371 times and viewed more than 47 000 times – even by non-Pirates’ supporters like fans from their arch rivals, Kaizer Chiefs.
“Normally I only accepted Pirates’ fans’ comments on my feed,” Dweba laughs, “But this time I made an exception.”
Zolile Dweba in his usual regalia as a Pirates ‘priest’ blessing fellow fans at a soccer game.
Image: Supplied
Dweba always wanted to work for Nissan. “The Skyline was my favourite car as a child, I wanted to drive the Qashqai and the Pathfinder as an adult and today I drive the Magnite, but the Pro 4X Warrior was only a dream, it was too far out of my price range.”
It was worth the wait, he says.
“It’s a beast on the road, with a heart the size of Africa, a total pleasure to drive especially on our roads. It is safe too.”
For Nissan Africa head of communications, marketing and customer experience Ramy Mohareb, the competition is proof of the company’s contention that the people are as important as the products.
“Over the last couple of years, we have made it an integral focus of all our outreach initiatives to include our staff whether it is going overland from South Africa to Egypt or attending the new product launches of the vehicles we bring to market.
“Zolile’s passion for the brand proves what we have always said: our people are our best ambassadors, just as important as the people who buy our vehicles.
“He’s also got a great future as a filmmaker – or at least an influencer as his winning entry shows,” says Mohareb.