A Falken New All-Terrain

Testing the Falken A/T3W.

- Christian Hazel

FIRST CAME THE OLD FALKEN Wildpeak A/T. It looked like something you’d see on a factory pickup truck on a dealership lot, but it came in sizes up to 37 inches in diameter and flat-out kicked ass in the dirt. In our testing, it actually out-performed many more-aggressive-looking all-terrain tires and, in many environments, mud-terrain tires.

Clearly, Falken did its home work. Then came the much-anticipated Falken Wildpeak M/T. It had a high-void tread design and burly sidewalls, and  picked up the ball where the Wildpeak A/T went to its muddy knees and ran it through the goal posts. Now, there’s the  Wildpeak A/T3W. A tweener tread—if we’re honest—blurring the lines between the A/T and M/T offerings. But the problem with being a tweener is potential for being outshined on either end. So the Wildpeak A/T3W enters the game with one sibling an all-star athlete and the other an honor-roll genius. Can it walk the walk, or is it all Jan Brady? Marsha, Marsha, Marsha!

To find out, we received a set of fresh, out-of-the-mold 35/12.5R17s from Falken and then took stock of our available test rigs in the stable. Our Project Con Artist JK Wrangler is currently down, so we put in a  call to AEV for a set of absurdly nice Ram Katla wheels so we could conduct our testing with