4x4 Magazine - July 2023 by Assignment Media Ltd

4x4

NEWS • VIEWS • KIT • EXPEDITIONS • MODIFIED VEHICLES • GREEN LANING PLUS Is ‘grey laning’ the answer for SUV owners?

THE UK’S ONLY 4X4 AND PICK-UP MAGAZINE

FOUR EPIC 90S

From hardcore off-road to family fun bus, a quartet of Land Rovers full of ingenuity and imagination – including one that’s not actually a 90 at all…

Muck and bullets galore as Extreme E comes to Scotland

£5.99

Loads of laning on our massive North Notts Roadbook

JULY 2023

Jeep’s magniﬁcent Cherokee 4xe concept unveiled 4x4 Cover June 23 WITH SARAH.indd 1

04/06/2023 12:09

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06/06/2023 09:56

THE WORLDS BEST ACCESSORIES FOR LAND ROVER

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11/04/2023 12:32

N O I T I D E P EX

Whether your idea of an expedition is an afternoon driving some local trails, a weekend off road and wild camping or a full-on trip across Africa, Terrafirma has all the accessories you will need. From roof racks and ladders to spare wheel carriers and snorkels, from jerry cans and sand tracks to fridges we have it covered with this extensive range of expedition accessories.

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ROOF TENTS AND AWNINGS ROOF RACKS AND LADDERS SPARE WHEEL CARRIERS RAISED AIR INTAKES EXPEDITION ACCESSORIES For more information visit www.terrafirma4x4.com email sales@terrafirma4x4.com

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11/04/2023 12:36

July 2023

CONTENTS

'If you dare to look to the left, you’ll see almost the on the valley ﬂoor'

42 28

2 | JULY 2023

Contents June.indd 2

4x4 06/06/2023 16:54

62 EIGHT MAGAZINES FOR EIGHT QUID! Get 8 issues of 4x4 for just £8 – yes, you read that right, a quid each! That’s 68% off – and you get them delivered to your door. Madness not to! 4x4 Scene: News, Products and More… 6 8 10 12 13 14 16 17 17

Range Rover Sport New 635bhp SV model is fastest ever Rangey VW Touareg Major upgrades for eternally classy premium SUV Inverted New name joins race to electrify classic Range Rovers Ineos Grenadier maker announces second line of true off-road vehicles Defender 130 Emergency response vehicle donated to British Red Cross Ironman Suspension kits designed to boost a vehicle's payload LOF Clutches Heavy-duty clutch kits for Tdi-powered Land Rovers Design and Development Security hinges to keep your bonnet at home ARB Handy camping light ideal for tents of every kind

Every Month 4 62 64 80

Alan Kidd Is grey laning the answer to on-road ennui for SUV owners? Subscribe Eight issues of 4x4s for a franky ridiculous £8.00! Roadbook A huge and varied route in the backwaters of North Notts Next Month Our August issue goes on sale on 14 July

Driven 18

Nissan X-Trail First time on UK roads for our 4x4 of the Year

Features 20 28 38 38 42 44 48

Jeep Cherokee 4xe Classic + Modern = The most luscious truck of all time Extreme E Much vaunted electric off-road race series comes to the UK 4x4 of The Best Four great modded 4x4s. This month: Land Rover 90 (mainly) Daddy Knows Best So he bought a tricked-up 90 to please his children Blazing a Trail One of the ﬁrst Td5s ever to be built for off-roading Bits and Pieces A home-brewed Land Rover that's more 90 than a 90 One V8 or Two? A Ferrari gets put in the shade by one of the ﬁrst bling 90s

Travel 54

Grey Laning Exploring the hidden history of the remote Scottish Borders

64 Nth Notts Roadbook are sharp rock Caution – there as you climb the steps to negotiate hillside

Step

Step 40: Turn left off the main embankment track, dropping then plunging down the straight into a water trough (right)

Step

Strata Florida

8.75

12.3 41

Abbey

Step

38 13.1

of track to the left Take the rocky track the main Cat A

Step

14 Step

Step

followed by a long

13.1

Step

16 11.8 Step

17 12.8 Step

18 12.8 88 | JANUARY 2020

It’s a steep, sharp climb up and over a bigger track – you can’t see ahead over your bonnet to start with

Caution over a steps as you short set of rocky drop down the hill

15.0

There’s a couple of huge water troughs after the junction

Step

11.7

whole of Talla laid out

More rock steps, water trough

Step

4212.6

10.9

Step

Look out for you cross the the waymarker as ford

15.2

13.4 Step

Join the Cat A

track

You may find yourself driving a river bed along for a while…

13.65 Step

track Drop off the main the gate and immediately before trough water into yet another

14.7 Step

to clear these axleneed a bit of momentum right is much bigger to the Step 37: You might warned, the drop-off twisters – but be than it looks here

4x4

46 14.9 4x4 JANUARY

2020 | 89

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JANUARY 2023 | 3

06/06/2023 16:54

4x4 Tel: 01283 742969

Alan Kidd Editor

t was in my first interview for the Deputy Editor’s job on this magazine, back in 1993, that I first learned about green laning. The Editor asked me if I’d heard of it and, when I admitted I hadn’t, described when it was all about. The magazine avoided the subject back then, when it was all very much about shinies, but I absolutely loved the idea. You mean to say, I thought, that there are places in this starchy, rule-bound, fencedoff, buttoned-up little country where you can drive a car on something that’s not covered in concrete? You mean to say there are places in Britain that aren’t fenced off? Let me at them! I want to explore! So I got the job and I turned out to be okay at it. But all the while, I was gagging to get my hands on a test vehicle so I could take it out and explore some lanes. Looking back at it, I know the mistakes I was making. But the idea of that freedom existing was just wonderful to me, and it has stayed that way ever since. Being able to leave the road and turn off on to a byway while everyone else looks on in envy… what an absolute privilege. Talking of mistakes, way back even before this I always loved the idea of exploring. Nothing wrong with that, but I had it in my mind that anything without a sign saying ‘private’ or ‘keep out’ was fair game. Absolutely wrong, of course, but I guess it was better than being the kind of 18 year old with a fresh licence who thinks speed limits don’t apply to them. So there I was getting into scrapes (especially the diff) in my Mum’s Fiesta and, later, the MkIV Cortina that was the first car I owned. Off-roaders weren’t something I understood back then, but off-roading was definitely something I wanted to do. If I had known about byways (growing up in Scotland didn’t help there), my first car would assuredly have been a 4x4 and who knows how different my life would have been. But in the absence of that opportunity for adventure, I’d seek out the tiniest roads I could find on the map and explore those instead. They often turned out to be dead ends but that was fine – I was just loving the freedom to get in a car and get out there into the wilds.

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I reckon ‘grey laning’ could actually be a thing Now, this might be a tale of laning-lite, or of juvenile naivety. But I was taken back to my early days behind the wheel recently when I ﬁnally took a couple of hours out and followed a road sign I had been driving past for years and wondering about. It points to Talla and Fruid, off the A701 between Moffat and Edinburgh, and it leads to the sort of roads which, if you drive a 4x4, convince you (as if you needed it) that your choice of car was the right one. There are B-roads that are perfect for sports cars. But I’m talking about the sort that are only one step up from being a track – narrow, unfenced, unmarked, rough in places and sublimely empty. Almost by deﬁnition, a road like this is worth exploring because it’s so quiet, the landscape around it can hardly help but please your soul. The landscape around Talla and Fruid certainly did that, and I hope my photos from the trip, in the feature starting on page 54 of this issue, convey some of the sense of awe I felt as I explored the area. It’s wild and natural but also man-made and full of history – none of which I would have discovered had I not been tempted into making the most of the SUV I was driving that week and setting off to explore. Now, I know very well that the majority of SUV owners would never go green laning. And to the vast majority of people who do go green laning, exploring on any kind of surfaced road feels like an anticlimax. These are roads you could drive in any car. But exploring them in a big, sure-footed SUV with a miles-high view from the cabin turns it into an adventure. I reckon ‘grey laning’ could actually be a thing. Maybe it is already. Maybe there’s a sub-cult of SUV owners who seek out the tiniest, narrowest, quietest roads and glory in the sort of discoveries I made when I went looking for Talla and Fruid. ‘Grey lanes’ are ideal for the sort of 4x4 you don’t want to scratch, after all. If that’s what you drive, give it a go. Take it from me: it’s a great way of learning about this land of ours – and a brilliant way of getting the best from your family 4x4.

Email: enquiries@assignment-media.co.uk Web: www.totaloffroad.co.uk www.4x4i.com Online Shop: www.toronline.co.uk Facebook: www.facebook.com/totaloffroad www.facebook.com/4x4Mag Editor Alan Kidd Design WW Magazines Tel: 01283 742970 Contributors Graham Scott, Olly Sack, Gary Noskill, Dan Fenn, Paul Looe, Tom Alderney, George McQueen, Andy Lauchlan Photographers Steve Taylor, Richard Hair, Harry Hamm, Vic Peel Advertising Sales Tandem Media Tel: 01233 555735 Colin Ashworth Tel: 01283 742969 Advertising Production Sarah Moss Tel: 01283 553242 Subscriptions Agency WW Magazines, 151 Station Street, Burton on Trent, DE14 1BG Tel: 01283 742970 Publisher and Head of Marketing Sarah Moss Email: sarah.moss@assignment-media.co.uk To subscribe to 4x4, or renew a subscription, call 01283 742970. Prices for 12 issues: UK £42 (24 issues £76); Europe Airmail/ROW Surface £54; ROW Airmail £78 Distributed by Marketforce; www.marketforce.co.uk Every effort is made to ensure the contents of 4x4 are accurate, but Assignment Media accepts no responsibility for errors or omissions nor the consequences of actions made as a result of these. When responding to any advert in 4x4, you should make appropriate enquiries before sending money or entering into a contract. The publishers take reasonable care to ensure advertisers’ probity, but will not be liable for loss or damage incurred from responding to adverts Where a photo credit includes the note ‘CC BY 2.0’ or similar, the image is made available under that Creative Commons licence: details at www.creativecommons.org 4x4 is published by Assignment Media Ltd, PO Box 8632, Burton on Trent DE14 9PR

4x4 06/06/2023 15:35

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02/06/2023 09:49

NEWS

New Range Rover Sport SV unveiled 635bhp and a 3.6-second 0-60 time

and Rover (sorry, JLR) has introduced the new Range Rover Sport SV. The successor to the SVR version of the previous model, this is a perfor-

6 | JULY 2023

5.5 Scene News July 23.indd 6

mance SUV combining the virtues of the existing Sport with levels of performance and handling that promise to go beyond what even that vehicle was able to achieve.

At the heart of the beast, the engine below the bonnet has got smaller but its output has got bigger. The Sport SV is powered by a 4.4-litre twin-turbo MHEV V8, supplied by BMW, whose 635bhp is backed up by 553lbf.ft. Numbers which translate into a 3.6-second 0-60 time and a top speed of 180mph. The icing on the cake is a 15% reduction in CO2 emissions, aided by the aforementioned mild hybrid technology. And 15% of a lot is a lot, so that’s a step in the right direction. Obviously, you may prefer to see the icing on the cake as being the SV’s styling, which retains the proceedsof-crime image for which the Sport has always been adored, but there’s plenty of cake going on either way. As well as looking like it’ll kill you if you look at it the wrong way, the

SV’s design is all about aerodynamic enhancements and the use of lightweight materials. The bonnet, grille surround and side vents are all made of carbon fibre, adding further purpose to distinguish the vehicle from the already sporty Sport (there’s a clue in the name). Further weight-saving measures include what JLR says are the world’s first 23” carbon fibre wheels, as well as carbon ceramic brakes. It all goes together to reduce the vehicle’s weight by up to 76kg, helping it go faster, pollute less and of course ride and handle better. In this area, JLR makes much of the SV’s new 6D Dynamics suspension system. This employs hydraulic interlinked dampers, height-adjustable air springs and pitch control to reduce body roll and maintain sta-

4x4 06/06/2023 12:47

NEWS

with

bility during extreme cornering and acceleration. The suspension works in tandem with advanced chassis and suspension systems, promising a driving experience reminiscent of a sports car. Inside, the sports car transforms itself into a luxury car. The cabin is

4x4 5.5 Scene News July 23.indd 7

trimmed in environmentally friendly Ultrafabrics PU material and SV Performance seats with integrated headrests promise to hold you in place while you’re making the most of all that dynamic prowess (or, let’s pretend, going for it off-road). The SV also features a unique audio system called Body and Soul Seat. Yes, we’re actually telling you about its stereo. This is worth a look, though, because it incorporates tactile technology from SubPac, enabling front-seat occupants to ‘feel’ the sound rather than just hearing it. The system also includes wellness programs that can help reduce stress and enhance relaxation, which is probably just as well if you’ve been listening to (and therefore feeling) Colour Me Badd singing I Wanna Sex You Up or something like that. How much is all this performance and technology going to cost you? The answer is that it’s not. Not for the ﬁrst year, at least, unless you’re one of the select clients Land Rover deems worthy of the opportunity to purchase an SV by invitation only. Should you be of such elevated status, the bottom line is £170,000; you’ll be requiring all the extras, though (which, funnily enough, include all the carbon), so bung another 10% on top of that and take it from there. • At the same time as unveiling the SV, JLR also announced updates to the rest of the Range Rover Sport line-up. This now gains a new plug-in electric hybrid variant, offering an extended electric range of up to 75 miles and reduced CO2 emissions; the latest generation Pivi Pro infotainment technology; integrated Amazon Alexa voice AI; and voice control systems designed to further enhance the driving experience. Prices start at £83,620 on the road.

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| 7 16:02 JULY 2023 09/02/2023

06/06/2023 12:47

NEWS

Major mid-life upgrades for Volkswagen Touareg

olkswagen has unveiled a revised version of the Touareg with new suspension, a refined cabin display and sharpened front and rear styling. Set to go on sale imminently, the company’s flagship SUV features newly developed HD matrix headlights at the front and LED tail-lights which illuminate as a full-width strip of light. The Touareg will continue to be available with a variety of engine options. These include a 3.0-litre turbocharged petrol V6 with 335bhp, a similarly sized diesel tuned for either 227 or 282bhp and a brace of plug-in hybrids, combining the same petrol engine with an electric motor to deliver 375 and 462bhp. In each case, the vehicle comes as standard with an 8-speed automatic gearbox driving all four wheels. New-look elements of the Touareg’s design include the radiator grille, headlights and front apron. In addition, there’s a range of four new alloy wheel designs from 19” to 21” in size. The vehicle will also be available with smart headlamps containing more than 38,000 interactive LEDs between them, which detect other traffic and mask their beam to prevent glare. The Touareg’s revised suspension is at the heart of the improvements Volkswagen has made to the vehicle, which now comes with a roof load sensor allowing the control systems to intervene earlier

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5.5 Scene News July 23.indd 8

when required for improved driving stability. When the sensor detects that no roof load is being carried, it will leave well alone to enable sportier performance. Additionally, the Touareg offers suspension technologies including active roll compensation and all-wheel steering. Inside, the brilliant Innovision Cockpit now comes as standard equipment across the range. This has been upgraded, too, with

optimised lane-level navigation and high-resolution map data as well as enhanced voice control. The USB-C connections now provide faster charging of electronic devices, with a capacity of 45 watts as opposed to the previous 15 watts, and the trim ﬁnish on the centre console has been softened for added comfort. With the equipment being kicked up a notch, the Touareg will remain available in a select range of trims. These are yet to be fully conﬁrmed for the UK market, however the Black Edition name will be retained (it’s the model in these photographs) and the range will be topped off by a high-performance R model. This will be powered by the 462bhp version of the eHybrid powertrain and ride on its own design of 20” alloy wheels. It’ll be distinguished by blue-painted brake calipers with a silver ‘R’ logo, which also appears in the light projected by the mirror-mounted puddle lamps. Inside, a leather-clad cabin is highlighted by blue accents.

‘The new Touareg impresses with top quality and outstanding comfort,’ says Volkswagen sales boss Imelda Labbé. ‘We have once again systematically implemented the wishes of our customers in this model: We have sharpened up the design, integrated an illuminated rear logo and made operation even more intuitive. ‘We’ve also enhanced the driving characteristics, making our premium Volkswagen even better. The result is a true all-rounder that will excite on-road, off-road and naturally also as a ﬁrst-class towing vehicle.’ The order book for the new Touareg was still to open at the time of writing, and prices were yet to be conﬁrmed. However the latter will range from €69,200 to €93,870 in Germany (€75,070 to €93,870 for models which will be available in the UK), so you can expect it to cost more than the outgoing version – which remains available to order from Volkswagen dealers while stocks last.

4x4 06/06/2023 12:47

ALL TERRAIN ADVENTURE

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05/06/2023 05/06/2023 15:28 16:23

NEWS

Range Rover restoration options grow yet again as Inverted joins the market using reused Tesla batteries to create ‘forever classic’ EV

A ‘REGENERATION SPECIALIST’ SOUNDS LIKE A COMPANY THAT PUTS TOGETHER DELUDEDLY WEALTHY PEOPLE AND CRYOGENIC TANKS. In fact it’s a company that puts together very wealthy people with electriﬁed classic vehicles. In this case, #001 is a Range Rover Classic. The world seems awash with companies ‘reimagining’ or in this case ‘regenerating’ high-end vehicles but there’s no doubt the market is there among the 1%. They’re buying luxury and moral purity – plus they can drive them to their oﬃces in The City without any worries. Plus it’s a way of stopping some venerable old delights, like early Range Rovers, being consigned to the great rustheap in the sky. This whole area is not without its dilemmas. Should we be gushing over a vehicle that now costs heading towards quarter of a million pounds while other people are desperately trying to get

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their old motors through their MOTs? Or would we rather these old 4x4 were scrapped or crushed? Or are we overthinking this? And what does that mean? Discuss noisily in enormous detail over an absinthe in a Left Bank café in Paris. Oh I don’t know. Let’s ask Harry Millington, founder and director of Inverted, what he thinks he’s doing. Harry? ‘With a passion for the classic Range Rover and a desire to future-proof this iconic model and reduce environmental impact, I founded Inverted. As part of this ethos, I made the conscious decision to recycle and re-use existing Tesla batteries, rather than increasing footprint with carbon intensive new modules. ‘Each car is lovingly restored and tailored to the individual customer’s specification. With no road tax, congestion or ULEZ charges and zero emissions, our electrified Range Rover Classic offers effortless, comfortable and reliable motoring in town or country. I believe we have created the ultimate, luxury forever-classic icon.’ Well, okay, but he would say that wouldn’t he? Notice though the emphasis on city driving, particularly London. Let’s not kid ourselves these old classics are being restored so they can show off their off-road prowess. But there’s no doubt that, whatever the use, this first

Inverted model is right up there for quality and imagination. And indeed performance. There’s now the equivalent of 450bhp and 440lbf.ft of torque, thanks to a reused Tesla 80kWh battery module and Large Drive Unit. All of this means the original axles have been uprated, plus there’s a limited-slip diff, while Alcon brakes deal with the extra performance. This particular vehicle also has an optional extra, the road handling pack, so the shocks are adjustable as are the anti-roll bars plus the springs are 25% stiffer to cope with, yes, life on the road at a fair clip. Naturally the whole thing has been body-off restored and it looks luscious. None of it more so than the interior, which features Harris Tweed and Muirhead Mocha leather. That’s a very ﬁne pairing indeed, and you can even feel good about it since Muirhead make the world’s lowest carbon leather. The interior is also bang up to date in terms of electronics and all available luxuries. Naturally you can choose what and how much you want to add or subtract; every vehicle is unique and they’re committed to only making six a year based on either the two-door, four-door or long-wheelbase LSE, with Inverted sourcing the donor vehicle. Prices start at £225,000 but that doesn’t include VAT and it’s obvious where it starts is not going to be where it ends, but if you’re worrying about the price then welcome to our world. Back in the day, the grasping priests would sell you indulgences for your soul. Now, thanks to Inverted and other such companies, you can do it without enriching the church or indeed Sadiq Khan. Such is progress.

4x4 06/06/2023 12:48

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18/01/2023 01/06/2023 09:18 12:26

NEW 4X4S

INEOS partners with Magna to create all-electric stablemate for Grenadier

INEOS IS ONE OF THE LARGEST chemical companies in the world, and also the maker of the Grenadier. And now that huge British chemical company has announced plans to build an all-electric 4x4, which it will start making in 2026. Consciences assuaged, market morality soothed, emissions transferred elsewhere – what’s not to like? Although INEOS is British, the vehicle will not be made in the UK. The company has a state-of-the-art factory in Hambach, on the French side of the German border. And it’s not going to be made there, either. That’s because the new vehicle is going to be the result of an even closer tie-up between INEOS and Magna. The Austrian company’s parts and vehicles get everywhere, usually with some other manufacturer’s name on them. Various versions of the Jeep Grand Cherokee, the Mercedes M-Class and G-Wagen, that level of stuff. Magna made the Pinzgauer, too, and the Haﬂinger before it. They know exactly what they’re doing.

12 | JULY 2023

5.5 Scene News July 23.indd 12

Magna did some of the research, engineering and design work on the Grenadier. But the new vehicle will take the relationship to a whole new level, because the it will effectively be designed and built by Magna at its plant in Graz, Austria. Happy days all round, then – Magna is a mighty impressive company and it should in no way be seen as a problem that it’s doing the lion’s share of the work on the new 4x4. So what is this new vehicle? What we know is that it will be smaller than the Grenadier and it will be powered by electric motors, giving zero emissions at that point. Now, that’s all great – and it is great – but some would worry about whether this will be a full-on 4x4. Well, the Grenadier certainly and Magna had a hand in that. But that’s not all. The vision is to make a 4x4 that offers customers ‘exceptional off-road capability, without compromising on-road comfort or performance’. INEOS has already promised that the Grenadier won’t be followed up by a succession of

soft-roaders, so we’re inclined to take it seriously. Talking of serious things, the Graz facility is located near Schöckl mountain, one of the world’s most demanding off-road test areas. The

Grenadier was developed here, and the new vehicle will be too. With a launch date just three years from now, it’s going to be a big task – but INEOS couldn’t have a better partner on board to get it there.

4X4 MAGAZINE IN FRANCE HAS NAMED the INEOS Grenadier as its 4x4 of the year. Readers selected a shortlist of three, which the editorial team then put through their paces. The British vehicle, which is made in France, took the prize awarded by the French magazine, for reasons explained by Michel Renavand, Deputy Editor in Chief: ‘It has all the features you need to progress eﬃciently on any type of surface. At ease on the road and very well equipped, its excellent climbing capabilities make it the undeniable 4x4 of the year. Truly a stroke of genius!’

4x4 06/06/2023 12:48

NEW 4X4S

JLR converts Defender 130 into emergency response vehicle ‘in line with its modern luxury principles’

A JLR DEFENDER 130, specially converted into a crisis response vehicle to mark the Platinum Jubilee of the late Queen Elizabeth II, has entered service with the British Red Cross in North Wales. The vehicle’s role will be to support the charity’s efforts to reach communities in remote areas such as Snowdonia, Lleyn Peninsula and the Isle of Anglesey. Developed in collaboration with the Red Cross, of which the Queen served as Patron for an extraordinary 70 years, the 130 has undergone various adaptations to prepare it for service. Astonishingly, JLR says this has been done ‘in line with (the company’s) modern luxury principles.’ It’s a crisis response vehicle, remember? The luxuries in question include a built-in phone linked to an enhanced 4G-connected antenna, providing a strong signal whatever the location – no small matter, with Wales having been ranked as the second-worst part of the UK for data coverage in rural areas. The 130 also carries a VHF radio for communications and an upgraded telematics system with GPS tracking, as

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well as a roof-mounted solar power system charging an auxiliary battery to power accessories when the engine is not running.’ To optimise storage capacity, the vehicle’s third row of seats has been removed to make way for a fitted drawer system. This allows it to carry equipment such as blankets, food and first aid supplies which may be used when responding to emergencies including storms, floods, fires and freezing conditions. The Red Cross crew will be able to provide people with hot drinks, too, thanks to a built-in water boiler, and the 130 also carries rechargeable torches – with charging points provided, natch. It’s also fitted with anti-bacterial seat covers, because you don’t want one one crisis turning into another. ‘From fires and floods to storms and power outages, our partnership with Defender has helped us to be there for people in a crisis,’ says British Red Cross’ Head of Emergency and Crisis Response Chris Davies. ‘This generous donation will have a massive impact on our emergency responders in North Wales, ensuring that we can continue to support people wherever they are and whatever the British weather can throw at us.’

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PRODUCTS

Suspension upgrades designed to increase your truck’s carrying capacity Price: TBA Available from: www.ironman4x4.com

IRONMAN 4X4’S LATEST SUSPENSION PRODUCT is a GVM (Gross Vehicle Mass) Upgrade kit for the current Nissan Navara. In Australia, where the company hails from, this is legally compliant to add 430kg to the vehicle’s oﬃcially rated payload capacity; the authorities won’t see it that way here in Britain, but by increasing what your truck can carry you’re allowing it to operate that much more comfortably within its limits – so if you’re planning to load it up with off-road accessories, this is still something to consider.

‘Many 4x4 owners will ﬁt and carry optional accessories like longrange fuel tanks, bull bars, winches, side steps, roof racks, recovery gear, a payload of camping equipment or an industrial type custom body,’ says Ironman. ‘Add these accessories with a tow ball weight from a trailer, camper trailer or caravan and it is almost guaranteed to be over. ‘With each accessory carried by the vehicle, the responsiveness of the original equipment suspension changes. The manufacturer designs their suspension for comfort above all else and the addition of load can

compromise ongoing performance. This is where Ironman 4x4 suspension and GVM upgrades come in.’ Obviously, a vehicle carrying a heavy load will behave very differently to one running unladen. And that’s just on the highway. Take it off-road and things become even more critical, with the suspension having to operate over rough ground while also controlling a mass of weight at extreme and constantly changing angles. ‘Creating safe and appropriate dynamic handling at higher than maximum original weight ratings requires careful consideration,’ in Ironman’s words. ‘Forces generated by a heavily loaded vehicle in rough terrain can be considerably higher than those generated during normal driving. The vehicle’s springs must be matched to the load for optimum ride height and body control. ‘If the shock absorbers do not possess the correct amount of damping resistance, the vehicle will remain highly susceptible to a rollover accident,’ continues Ironman. ‘By building high critically

damped shock absorbers, we have created the safest and best handling aftermarket suspension possible at GVM weights and beyond. ‘Foam cell shock absorbers are perfectly suited to increased load in demanding and hot off-road environments. Compared to gas shocks, they distribute the oil more evenly around the shock body resulting in more dissipation of heat and long lasting control.’ This latest kit from Ironman is intended speciﬁcally for coil-sprung versions of the NP300 Navara from after the vehicle stopped being imported to the UK. However the company has long specialised in suspension packages designed to increase 4x4s’ carrying capacities and it already has a range available for most of the main pick-ups as well as a small number of station wagons (including the Suzuki Jimny, interestingly). There’s a rather sobering ready reckoner showing how easily a typical set of off-road products can bust your gross vehicle weight, and a lot more information besides, at www.ironman4x4.com.

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PRODUCTS

Heavy-duty clutch for hard-worked Tdi engines Price: £210 plus VAT From: lofclutches.com THE TDI ENGINE REMAINS A POPULAR CHOICE for the title of Land Rover’s best ever. The clutch behind it, on the other hand, might need some work. And if you want a clutch that works, you know where to turn. LOF Clutches are renowned for this sort of thing, whether in everyday RoadSpec or the heavy-duty PowerSpec we’ve got here. This is designed for vehicles whose owners use them as workhorses – whether that’s as heavy-duty tow trucks, off-road warriors or specced up expedition motors. It’s the one to use if you’ve had your Tdi breathed on, too. This particular clutch doesn’t ﬁt with the rare but sought-after 2.8 TGV ‘Brazilian’ version of the Tdi – as you might expect if you know your LOF, the company does have one to suit this unit, but that’s another story. What it does work with is anything that was ﬁtted with a Tdi as standard. So that’s the Defender, Discovery and Range Rover Classic – in each case, whether in 200 or 300 Tdi guise. The kit includes a heavy-duty friction plate, uprated clutch cover, heavy-duty release bearing, spigot bush and fasteners. It doesn’t include a clutch fork, but you’d be mad not to while you’re in there – and LOF have thought of that, because they also offer a bundle deal including one of these plus a rear crank seal and alignment took for just a few quid more. As it is, you also get OEM spigot and fork bushes, a high-tensile bolt pack fro the cover, a tube of G90 high-temperature grease and CNC wire formed bearing and pushrod retaining clips. Everything you can think of, basically, and quite a lot besides that you almost certainly hadn’t. As always, LOF promises that the clutch’s pedal weight will be no heavier than original. Its lifespan, on the other hand, ought to be incomparable – especially if you ask the sort of questions of your vehicle that its original specs would rather you didn’t.

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4x4

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06/06/2023 12:41

PRODUCTS

Security Bonnet Hinges to keep your Defender together Price: £120 From: www.designdevelopmenteng.co.uk

THESE ANTI-THEFT BONNET HINGES from Design and Development Engineering come with stainless ﬁxings and hardened pins. They’re supplied as standard in a black hard-anodised ﬁnish but can be colour-coded to match any Land Rover factory shade – the set seen here are in Galway Green. These himges are CNC-machined from aviation-grade aluminium and designed to look as close as possible to the originals – while putting up a much more robust defence against attempts to tamper with them.

ARB keeps the light shining inside your tent

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Price: Ca £55 inc VAT From: Britpart dealers YOU DON’T NEED A 4X4 to get the best from ARB’s Tent Lighting Kit. But it helps. Described by its manufacturer as ‘the perfect addition to any camping setup,’ the light is designed in particular with roof tents and awnings in mind. See, told you it helps. It puts out a dimmable 300 lumens of light and has a touch-sensitive switch so that you don’t have to fumble blindly around the place when you wake up in the middle of the night. The light draws up to 1 amp from a 12V supply and, as well as being a light, contains three outputs of its own – two USB ports rated at 1A and 2.1A and another 12V socket. It has a fused 4m cable and is rated splash-resistant to IP54, with fully weather resistant external plugs. ARB promises that the light will be easy to set up, and indeed the company has engineered it to suit 25mm clamps when ﬁtted on its own Flinders and Simpson roff tents. You don’t have to stretch to the full ARB, though; it will work equaly well with any other tent or awning with 25mm poles.

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See & be seen better with our High Quality, Plug & Play 6, 12 & 24v Interior, Dashboard, Exterior & Headlight LEDs. Our LED Headlights are MOT Compliant for Vehicles registered before 1.4.86 and all Motorcycles Designed for a wide range of Classics including our Warm White Range for a brighter but period look. Complete car, part car and bespoke upgrade kits also available for many marques such as Healey, Land Rover, Jaguar, MG, Mini and Triumph.

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| 17 JULY 2023 09/03/2023 15:15

06/06/2023 12:41

DRIVEN

NISSAN X-TRAIL VC-TURBO 163 Our reigning 4x4 of the Year champion wears its crown well in the e-4ORCE form we’ve been limited to until now. How does it fare on UK roads, in mid-range trim and with the entry-level mild hybrid engine?

WINNING 4X4 OF THE YEAR is an achievement of enormous note. It’s what the new Nissan X-Trail did in the wake of its launch last autumn, after we had driven it in the mountains of Slovenia and on a surprisingly testing off-road track – but now here’s where we see how it responds to British roads. Not just that, though. The X-Trail we’re testing here is the N-Connecta model, powered by a 163bhp VC-Turbo mild hybrid petrol engine turning just the front wheels. Not our normal stock in trade, no, but a worthwhile indication of what the bulk of X-Trails coming to the UK are going to look like. To recap, Nissan’s Big Idea with the X-Trail is the e-4ORCE drivetrain fitted to higher-spec models. This is propelled by electric motors, with a petrol-powered generator keeping the battery topped up. It turns all four wheels and Nissan has made the most of what the technology allows by building in enough safety features to make your head spin. That’s what you get at the top of the range, though. There’s a £4600 price walk to e-4ORCE from the VC-Turbo tested here; the bottom line is influenced by which unit is available with which trim level, but the mild hybrid takes you from £32,890 to £43,380 while the full works starts at £39,165 and climbs to £47,980. There’s also a 2wd version of the e-4FORCE system, called e-POWER, which sits in the middle of the price range. So you’ve got an X-Trail that’s knocking on for fifty large at the top of the range, which might make you need to readjust your thinking but as we found

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out in Slovenia, it’s good enough to justify every penny. The N-Connecta, meanwhile, sits in the middle of a ﬁve-strong range and costs £37,390 with the VC-Turbo engine, so what we’re driving here is a seven-seat SUV for similar money to, for example, a high-spec Ford Focus. Welcome to the car market, 2020s-style. Being a 4x2, obviously this here X-Trail isn’t an off-roader the way the e-4ORCE. But its everyday credentials are unimpeded; so if this is as far as your budget can stretch, what will you get? We’ve previously raved about the quilted tan leather that’s available as a no-cost option at the very top of the X-Trail range. It creates a mainly twotone cabin that looks fabulously classy; obviously, this is at the luxury end of the scale and we weren’t expecting anything like that on the N-Connecta, but there’s nothing disappointing about the trim materials in this less elevated model. Everything looks and feels like it was made to last, which in a family car is no small matter. Even taking the top-speccer’s eye-candy appear into account, though, the cabin styling in the N-Connecta doesn’t hang together as successfully. To us, there are too many tones and textures going on. You start with soft-touch brown plastic on the dash top, then as your eye moves downwards it encounters materials looking like very dark grey leather with light grey stitching, brushed metal with a stainless edge, polished piano black and hard grey

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plastic. It’s not offensive but with so much going on, we don’t think it looks like as coherent a piece of design as it could be. That’s a pity because the cabin’s underpinnings are very good indeed. It’s well laid out, logical to find your way around and pleasing to operate, with a huge infotainment screen dominating proceedings. As you’d expect, this is very good; its graphics are superb and the module behind it is powerful, quick and easy to use, with fuss-free smartphone pairing. We might not be wild about the way the cabin is finished, but the seats in it are very good. Here, they’re trimmed in a hard-wearing fabric that feels like it was chosen for the battering it can take. They’re very comfortable, too, with a supportive shape to them and an adjustable lumber cushion that comes out so far it feels like it’s going to go all the way through your back and out the front. We remarked on it when we first drove the X-Trail last year and we’ve still never felt anything else like it. There’s plenty of adjustment in every other area too, both up front and in the back. The third row of seats is best for kids, but the second is more than capable of accommodating tall units and if you want to carry a full complement of seven adults you can adjust your way to making it possible. Maybe not for long journeys, but it’ll do it. When the seats go down, the X-Trail becomes a world-class cargo carrier. We pressed ours into service for a couple of monumental tip runs, and the amount it was capable of swallowing beggared belief. Both the second and third rows fold completely flat, allowing you to slide all sorts in there, and a vast tailgate aperture means it’ll take bulky items as well as long ones. All SUVs of this size can carry a lot, but the elegance with which the X-Trail takes on the task moves it ahead of the game. The space you get is usable in seven-seat mode and huge in five-seat mode, but the extent of its brilliance here only becomes apparent when you turn it into a small van. Up front, the other kind of cargo carrying is taken care of competently but without any surprise or delight. The horizontally split clamshell-opening cubby box does most of the work when it comes to oddments, backed up by a decent pair of door pockets; there’s nothing to get excited about here, but nothing to moan about either. Moaning is something we sometimes have to do after a first experience of a vehicle on smooth European roads is followed up by a reality check on the shattered wreckage of urban Britain. And Slovenia did make poor old Blighty look distinctly third-world in this respect. But after a week of our magnificently pot-holed tarmac, we found that it was more than capable of soaking up impacts. You’re on 18” rims in the N-Connecta, as opposed to 19” in the Tekna and 20” in the Tekna+, which won’t do any harm, but even then there’s little

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to be concerned about in the way it rides. Really bad roads can set up a little body movement, and you can feel the suspension being worked when you encounter a field of corrugations, but moments of harshness are few and far between. Nonetheless, in the balance between ride and handling we’d say it’s the latter that stands out. It’s agile, predictable, biddable and entertaining, with precise steering and bags of grip – yes, even without four-wheel drive, though the weather was dry for the duration of our test. You can really enjoy it on B-roads – which we did, and how, on an extremely spirited thrash across the Scottish Borders. The mild hybrid engine may only put out 163bhp, but on the sort of roads where you can have a blast without ever busting the speed limit that’s all you need – and with good low-down torque, a nice raspy noise and a gleeful willingness to rev, it’s a great partner in crime. It’s quite competent on the motorway, meanwhile, and docile but willing around town. We’re not fans of the stop-start system, though. This kills the engine almost as soon as you come to a halt, making a game of chicken out of every brief pause to check for traffic at a T-junction. Once the engine has been switched off, too, it comes back on with a prod of the gas but then there’s a huge jerk as the transmission takes up, making for a rather slow-witted resumption of progress. We actually found ourselves glancing in the mirror on several occasions to see if the guy behind us was mouthing off and/or about to get on the horn. That may or may not be a big grumble – to us, it’s another reason to stump up the extra for the e-4ORCE drivetrain, which obviously we’d be doing anyway as four-wheel drive matters. But with a return of 33.8mpg over a week of pretty hard use, the VC-Turbo engine proved itself worthy – and overall, the X-Trail showed us that it’s as good on British roads as it is everywhere else. Even after all these years of testing 4x4s, it can be easy to be seduced by high-spec luxuries and superb roads in exotic locations. This was our first time in a lower-spec X-Trail, and also our first on the plight of Britain’s road network, and we feared that we might come away wondering is we had done the wrong thing by making it our 4x4 of the year. We needn’t have worried: on the contrary, we came away more convinced than ever that we had made the right decision.

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HELLO SUNSHINE Baja meets Aztec in Jeep’s Cherokee 4xe concept – a seventies’ classic resto-modded Words: Graham Scott Pictures: Jeep

orking at Jeep is clearly a dream job for many. Mark Allen is probably one of those who would agree. He’s Head of Jeep, Exterior Design, and he gets to play with stuff. And one of the favourite things he likes to play with are what he calls the ‘resto-mods’. Obviously this has nothing to do with an arrested-development teen scowling on a scooter but is instead a chance to both restore but also modify and reimagine a classic vehicle. In this case it’s a 1978 Jeep Cherokee SJ. Which, at one level, is a beautiful demonstration of irony in action. Because you have already guessed that this resto-mod is powered by electricity. Yet, back in the day, one of the options to power this two-door Jeep was a 6.6-litre V8. It remains the largest engine ever offered as standard in a Jeep, eclipsing even the far more recent and more powerful 6.4-litre Hemi V8 found in the Grand Cherokee SRT-8. Back in the 1970s that meant you had a big 4x4 that had a speedo marked up 120mph because this beast could top 100mph and see off virtually any other 4x4 of its day with that big V8 under the bonnet. Made from 1974 to 1983, this Cherokee was arguably the ﬁrst to be called a Sport Utility Vehicle, the SUV term ﬁrst appearing in the 1974 Cherokee brochure. That’s quite a pedigree, and who wouldn’t want to be rolling a 6.6-litre V8? But this was in the 1970s and there were dark clouds gathering. True, the Vietnam War had been over for three years by the time this Cherokee rolled off the production line but do you remember 1978? Yes, dear Gen Z, that was last century.

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on top of a Wrangler 4xe chassis thanks to the latest technology and an unlimited budget

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If you know your JL Wranglers, you’ll instantly know where the Cherokee’s interior came from. To know where it went to, you might need a more intimate knowledge of hallucinogenic substances – one look and you just know that aboard this Jeep, every trip is going to be a trip. If you start getting into the details, you might see a slightly odd combination of beach-bum art and sumptuous luxury, but to criticise it for that you really would need to be a desperate-level hater. And anyway, this is a vehicle that’s all about the love… which we do, big-time Gen Z would roll its collective eyes at the launch of the film Grease, the very first episode of Dallas and the news that the Bee Gees’ Saturday Night Fever had just started its six-month reign at No 1. As if all that wasn’t bad enough, President Jimmy Carter was in the White House and oil prices had started soaring in what was rapidly becoming a war with OPEC.

That last fact was perhaps the first step on a journey that leads us to the Cherokee we see before us. And let’s not forget that life is an infinite game (although it’s finite for us) and we have no idea where the journey will take us next. Almost certainly not all-electric batteries since we don’t have the minerals, rare earths and chemicals on this planet to make them in the numbers needed.

But for this step on the way we have this. And I think it’s gorgeous. And here’s an absolutely fabulous starting point. The vehicle you see here, worked on with infinite budget by Jeep’s best talent, where did it come from? Jeep had to go out and buy it. They found it on Craigslist, bought it and brought it back inside. At this point the path starts to diverge from the average owner who

Does it look a bit incongruous to see a loadsamoney winch tucked in beneath that iconic Cherokee SJ grille? If so, you’re over-thinking it, so let’s say no to that one. As for the slot-mag wheels hidden somewhere deep inside those 37” BFG muds, they’re not incongruous at all – they’re absolutely perfectly in keeping with the hauled-out-of-the-seventies image

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would now start rummaging about, trying to see what could be salvaged or restored. Jeep scanned the whole vehicle then made a digital model of it. As you do or indeed don’t. They then took the exterior body and modified it as little as they needed to so it could fit onto a complete chassis of a Wrangler Rubicon 4xe. Past and present in one package. The present replaces that monstrous V8 with two electric motors and vast high-voltage battery pack. Oh and there’s a little-bitty 2.0-litre turbocharged four-pot engine too. In hybrid mode you’re getting torque from the engine and the electric motor. Getting away from the lights would probably be more impressive even than the old V8. But you can also go to full electric mode for about 20 miles or you can go old-school and in Esave mode it’s mostly the petrol engine that does the work to save the battery. It’s clever

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and it works and, in Moab where Jeep like to showcase these things, it means virtually no pollution from the end pipe, just from a power station elsewhere. One of the very neat things about this powerplant array is that it is working through a ‘normal’ transmission, in this case an eight-speed auto box. You’re going to feel like you’re driving a big ol’ Jeep not a Scalextric car. That feeling is helped further by the transfer case, so you can go serious rock crawling. The Cherokee here had the Wide-Track option, which included Dana 44s as both axles, giving a wider and stronger stance, plus it had those bigger wheel cutouts for the rugged look. But, as we’ve seen, this thing is for ‘go’ as well as ‘show’ both on and off the road. This thing can haul ass on the highway or it can really get into the mud or rock-crawling. But perhaps that’s not quite the right attitude. Stand back and take another look. I can’t think of another vehicle that would so benefit from a surfboard on the roof. It really does have that vibe, and faded baseball cap off to the designers for converting this vehicle with so much spirit and

happy vibe. Seriously, wouldn’t you want to get in and drive it somewhere wild or by the ocean? What I get from it is that California sunshine look, but Jeep went through some interesting style changes over the years. In a time of Bee Gees, Dallas and Grease, the 1979 Golden Eagle package did indeed place a gold eagle on the bonnet, but it also added denim seats and gold-painted steel wheels. Wince. The original idea of the Cherokee was to make a more performance-focused go-anywhere vehicle that would appeal to a younger audience than Jeep had at the time. The current design team took that idea and ran with it. The low-backed bucket seats are clad in slightly distressed looking oxhide leather, while the rear bench seat has gone, to be replaced by a four-point safety cage. Inside that secure rear sits a full-size spare wheel and tyre in case you get too enthusiastic off-road with one of the other 37” tyres on custom 17” ‘slot-mag’ wheels. And whoever did the interior paintwork was clearly tripping on something rather marvellous that was almost certainly ‘shroom based. Again, it’s up to the individual but to me it’s sort of Baja meets Aztec. You couldn’t drive this vehicle in a suit and in a grumpy mood, it just wouldn’t be possible. And we love the attention to detail. In among all the modern controls and levers, and just above the red switch for choosing twoor four-wheel drive, there is a Soundwave stereo sound system. And what is currently playing on it? Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon. Perhaps Jeep is subliminally reminding us that to make something this amazing takes Time and it takes Money. And it really does Eclipse any other electric SUV we’ve seen.

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JULY 2023 | 27

06/06/2023 10:18

ou may not have heard of Extreme E. Some may suspect it describes a fairly epic drug trip, while others will pull a face as they suspect they’re going to be force-fed yet another electric thingy to save the planet. But you’ve probably heard of these names: Jenson Button, Nico Rosberg, Lewis Hamilton, Carlos Sainz, Adrian Newey, McLaren, Andretti – and Carl Cox. Depending on your age and inclinations you will recognise some of the biggest and grandest names in Formula One – and a very successful petrolhead DJ. What they all have in common is that they are team bosses and senior management in this new off-road all-electric racing category. So what are you thinking? That this is a retirement home for old racing drivers and designers, keen to polish

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driven to extremes With small grids, virtual crowds and an intense focus on the environment, Extreme E is a very non-traditional form of motorsport. But when the lights turn green and the air is ﬁlled with the whine of electric motors, the focus shifts ﬁrmly to the task in hand – as was demonstrated when the support ship docked in Scotland for the second round of the 2023 championship Words: Graham Scott Pictures: Extreme E, and as credited

Colin McMaster / LAT Images their environmental credentials after a lifetime of consuming colossal amounts of fuel and energy and private planes and a global ﬂying circus? Tut-tut, such cynicism in one so young. There’s no question that this is a big and well-funded championship though. But the outcome? Small grids, maybe only a few vehicles actually ﬁnishing the race, a noise like a big Scalextric car, no crowds, no banshee wailing of engines, no hype and instead of Imola or Silverstone we have a muddy, gritty old coalmine in Scotland as one of the venues. And of course we have the concern for the environment, because we care, we really care – don’t you? Don’t you care enough? Race locations are apparently chosen to highlight climate change and to highlight ‘global issues’. Extreme E ‘works

4x4 7pp Extreme E Scotland.indd 29

with changemakers to be part of the solution’. All the vehicles are transported by ship rather than planes, with the ship then becoming both accommodation and a base for the scientists who form part of the circus. To give an idea of how much people in this championship care, everyone carries their own cutlery to events. And there is muttering that the VIPs shouldn’t be ferried round in Range Rovers and there shouldn’t be Champagne sprayed by the winners. Yet, miraculously, this whole championship is deﬁnitely not a fun sponge. Perhaps it’s the sheer depth of talent and the deepness of the pockets. After all, who doesn’t want to be involved with actual racing that, because it’s all-electric and because each round delivers real beneﬁts to local communities,

landscape and environment, can be seen as something positive with a real future? It’s fair to say that the FIA-sanctioned Extreme E is very much a work in progress. But some of the basics are clearly going to stay. The vehicles are fundamentally identical and each team has two drivers, and one has to be male and the other has to be female. (What happens if the trans lobby ever enter a team is anyone’s guess.) And both drivers have to compete in each heat and race, with a designated driver-swap area. And the whole heat/race thing seems to be work that needs more progress. There are ten teams on a good day and there are Q1 and Q2 heats for five vehicles each, with the top five vehicles going forward to the Grand Final while the other five vehicles fight it out for the Redemption Race. And

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since there are two rounds for each ‘race’, it all repeats Saturday and Sunday. So you’re looking at five vehicles racing at a time. Not many. And if any have been too damaged to continue you can have just two or three fighting it out. That is not a spectacle. But this is a championship in its third year and doubtless more time will bring more of a show. Those few vehicles are all effectively identical, bar a touch of bodywork and paint. These Odyssey 21 SUVs are built by Spark Racing Technologies with battery packs supplied by Williams Advanced Engineering (that’s the Williams from F1). That’s good for 400kw which is the equivalent of about 550bhp. The chassis are made of niobium, a material I’d never heard of, by CBMM | Niobium, who work with Formula E, giving a chassis that is light and less energy intense than others. On top of that the bodywork is not made of carbonfibre or metal, it’s made of natural flax fibres. The only bodywork

where, as a byproduct, you can eat the seeds or add them to your vegan smoothie. While that may supercharge your gut, the combined vehicle package will certainly get you going. You can hit 62mph in just 4.5sec from launch and, with 385mm of suspension travel, you’ve got travel similar to a Dakar vehicle. Double wishbone suspension keeps it all controlled, while big Alcon calipers and bespoke Continental Tyres add more control for whatever you’re trying to do. For 2023 the caring circus will travel in their ship to ﬁve locations (although it seems unlikely the crews won’t be ﬂying in). As mentioned, all of them are chosen for some environmental focus. So far there’s been the Desert X Prix in the sands of Saudi Arabia and the Hydro X Prix at the aforementioned old coal mine in Scotland (which is where the pictures on these pages come from), and the season ends with the Copper X Prix which, as the name suggests, will be at a copper mine, in Chile.

So what actually happens at a race? We’re used to the schedule of a Formula 1 or Formula E, with the free practice, qualifying and race – in the case of F1 that’s spread over a weekend, while for Formula E it all happens in one day. But for Extreme E, as mentioned, things are currently done rather differently. Let’s take a look at Round 3 and Round 4. Spoiler alert, that means one race meeting at one location over one weekend. In this case, the former open-cast coalmine at aptly named Glenmuckloch. This spent old monument to coal is now a hideous looking thing, lacking somehow the sexy allure of Monaco or Spa. You may have gathered a certain level of weary scepticism thus far with the whole eco thing, but let’s give credit where credit is due. Extreme E isn’t just a race series that’s going ‘Oooh, look at the hideous mess we’ve made of the countryside, we need to stop burning coal and trust in windmills.’ Not least because windmills won’t reliably give the power

Sam Bloxham / LAT Images

International off-road race series tend to be associated with sun, sand and glamorous sounding desert locations. But then, international off-road race series have tended not to visit Scotland before. Extreme E is tearing up the rule book in more ways than one, though – the result being a high attrition rate as the going got ever muddier. Cars being stopped by failed windscreen wipers? We’re pretty sure the likes of Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton never had to cope with that in the day job

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these e-cars need, nor get it to them deep in sand dunes or an open mine. Instead there’s far more than a token effort to get involved and make a difference. Every race site is different of course, and the fate of spawning salmon wasn’t a big issue at the last rounds in Saudi Arabia. But it is here. Teams and scientists, including the drivers, actually got in there with an initiative to plant sensors to work out what’s happening and also planting a thousand trees to stop the river banks eroding. Plus of course bringing the issue into the spotlight. However, it wasn’t just the salmon that gained from the event. Extreme E also supports girls, even though, as far as we know, climate change isn’t affecting their spawning habits yet. Extreme E works with the FIA initiative Girls on Track, and so invited 80 girls from local schools to immerse themselves

in all things motorsport. Not only that but Chloe Grant, F1 Academy driver and ambassador for Girls on Track, was there as a role model as she took the Odyssey 21 for a spin and talked about careers in motorsport. Alongside her was Mr Mighty Thighs himself, fellow-Scot, ex-cycling legend and petrolhead Sir Chris Hoy. Add in school visits and more, and it’s clear to see that the Legacy Programme, as it’s called, is a lot more than virtue signalling, it’s really getting into the communities where the races are held, and may have, indeed, a legacy that lasts longer than the races. Which brings us to the actual racing. Round 3, Saturday. As mentioned, there seem to be endless qualifying heats, but that got simplified because this is Scotland. So Q1 was cancelled since the weather was so dire the medical chopper couldn’t fly. Which put some pressure on Q2.

Before we get to that, there’s yet another wrinkle. Each team fields a male and a female (so binary) and the team chooses what order they drive in. So there’s a drive switch area, a bit like a pit stop, which is mandatory and is carefully enforced. Each driver has to drive but the team can choose who goes first and that’s not known until they get in. Which means that you have, by default, a mix of men and women racing together, it’s not just men v men and so on. In the last couple of seasons the women have got about 25% faster the data shows, which is impressive. Particularly as many of them don’t get as much race-time as the men as they’re not competing in other championships like many of the blokes. Anyway, back to Q2. But in Q2 Heat 2 there was quite a shunt just seconds into the heat. Physical contact is pretty common at the start as the line-up of five vehicles heads for the first turn, and getting ahead there pays dividends elsewhere, as it always does when the track is slaggy, muddy and throwing up rocks, mud, dust and whatever else you might find buried in an old coal mine. For Klara Andersson her qualifying ended when she collided with another vehicle and went through some hay bales at pace. That’s the issue. This caused a red flag, and when qualifying

In some ways, Extreme E resembles comp safari racing. The wheel-to-wheel element gives it another dimension, however – if you thought electric cars were just a form of polite virtue signalling, think again…

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Alastair Staley / LAT Images resumed there were only three vehicles on the line as Molly Taylor had mechanical issues. And then they set off from the green light with the gaps they had when the red flag came out, so it’s just three vehicles apparently setting off at random. After all of qualifying you get the Redemption Race, which is for the five vehicles that didn’t make it to the actual final race. Except only four started. By the finish Laia Sanz and Mattias Ekstrom took the win for their Acciona | Sainz XE team – and yes, it’s that Sainz, Carlos. Last season Carlos himself raced, alongside Laia Sanz. Just in case there’s anyone thinking the women are here to make up the numbers, Laia Sanz has been Trial World Champion (a staggering 14 times), Enduro World Champion (5 times) and a finisher in the Dakar no less than 13 times in a row, on two wheels as well as four.

32 | JULY 2023

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The Grand Final for the day, featuring the top five cars, got off to a proper flying start, but on the first lap a very fired-up Johan Kristoffersson catapulted into some boulders and that was it for team RXR. Clearly that chassis can take the hits but for the Rosberg team (yes, that Rosberg) their day was over. But not for the others, even though things didn’t go as planned for Brit Catie Munnings and Timmy Hansen. Driving for the Andretti Altawkilat team (yes, that Andretti), they crossed the line first and celebrated only to lose their first place due to an infringement when swapping drivers. That left X44 Vida Carbon Racing to take the win, with drivers Cristina Gutierrez and Fraser McConnell. Which must have pleased team owner, a certain Lewis Hamilton. Particularly as that put his team in third place in the

championship at that point, one place above Nico Rosberg’s RXR team. Sunday was a reminder that, while the grids are small and the vehicles sound like remotecontrol toy cars, the drivers are deadly serious and absolutely racing to win. These are big rigs, with a wheelbase of 3m and a height of 1.9m, weighing in at 1870kg. The course they had laid out in the old mining area had jumps, sharp ascents and descents, and some ﬂying sections, all with a base under the scrabbling wheels of bits of coal, mud and plenty of rocks. And, on Sunday, standing water. It rained. Of course it did. The Q2 heats showed how slippery conditions were getting, and that was one cause of some fairly spectacular accidents. The sight of the RXR vehicle being punted up onto two wheels, only to go sideways

4x4 06/06/2023 15:55

4x4 Magazine_2023_Feb_Graham Sykes Insurance_HP.indd 1

11/01/2023 11:02

We currently stock O.E. propshafts for many 4x4 models, but we are proud to have also spent time developing our own “Extreme” range. For the majority of 4x4 vehicles we can offer an upgraded propshaft option, whether you need greater angle, longer splines or larger torque capacity (which may give increased potential life-expectancy). Why choose “Extreme?” Wide Angle Operation - Double Cardan Joints - Heavy Duty Universal Joints Upgraded sliding assembly - Higher Torque Capacity - Heavy Duty Tubing www.baileymorris.co.uk • T:+44(0)1480 216250 • E:sales@baileymorris.co.uk

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JULY 2023 | 33

06/06/2023 10:19

into three other vehicles at right angles was wince-inducing. So too was the three-vehicle accident in Heat 1 that saw masses of bodywork smashed to bits and vehicles sitting on bales or down in what looked like a slurry pit. While this seemed to annoy the drivers more than shock them, it also meant that only four cars actually started the Redemption Race. Although that was three within moments, which meant it was a little hard to maintain the sense of drama. But then came the Grand Final. I’m not going to bore you with all the other elements that add points to scores, like the Hyperdrive boost the drivers can use once, or the points that are based on Continental tyre calculations, but eventually, after all the heats, here we were in a race for the win. And the rain came down. What did the drivers need at this point? More power? No, what they needed was a working set of windscreen wipers and a wash-wipe with the capacity of an Olympic swimming pool. Or, as all the drivers knew, you needed to be in the lead. That made the first turn quite tasty but it was Kevin Hansen of Team Veloce who got it done. This gave him such an advantage, one he made the most of. When he came in to hand over to Molly Taylor he handed over a relatively clean car with a clear windscreen. She duly made the most of the advantage and was never passed before the finish. In second place was the NEOM McLaren team with Emma Gilmour and Tanner Faust in a battered and muddy vehicle that somehow held station – apart from all the bits of bodywork that fell off – behind the Veloce all the way to the flag. Finishing the third spot on the podium were Amanda Borensen and RJ Anderson, drivers for the GMC Hummer EV Chip Ganassi Racing team. There’s a lot in that title including the presence of one of the biggest names in racing in the USA, plus Hummer as a sponsor. Behind them it wasn’t so pretty. That Chip Ganassi team had been languishing in fifth, but then the vehicles in third and fourth showed what atrocious conditions and a refusal to back off can lead to. The RXR car’s wipers and wash-wipe simply packed up early on. Heaven knows how they got it through the first two laps but, after the driver swap, it became impossible to see through the windscreen. Just ahead of RXR’s Mikaela Ahlin-Kottulinsky, herself a seriously successful racer, was Laia Sanz in the Sainz team vehicle. She too was completely blinded and the two cars collided. The onboard footage shows how impossible it was, but from the outside it was almost comical. The

two vehicles hit and spun, ending up about 15 feet away from each other and facing each other. Neither driver could see where they were going, but both were determined to press on. So both just hit the throttle. A second later they both hit each other, head on. Then they did it again in an eruption of bodywork and expensive mechanicals. These ladies were not for turning. Then they got going, but there was such huge damage to their vehicles that neither made the finish. The incident let the American team through and showed how committed these racers are, male or female. But ahead, serene in the clean Veloce vehicle, Molly Taylor powered it over the

line. That result means Veloce are pulling away at the front of the championship. One can’t help feel that this would have pleased Veloce’s ‘Lead Visionary’, the F1 designer Adrian Newey. Who knows where this championship goes. Possibly not even a Lead Visionary does. At the moment it has money, commitment, and a deep array of talent. But it lacks crowds, numbers, noise, and clarity since I can’t believe anyone watching would be able to keep track of all the heats and split racing and complex points awards two days in a row. However Extreme E has one extremely important element in its favour. It has a sense of

34 | JULY 2023

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purpose. It’s not just racing – and it is deﬁnitely hard racing – it is also committed to helping communities, landscapes and, yes, perhaps the environment. That’s a powerful combination that may yet give it a bright future.

Above: Alastair Staley / LAT Images

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EXETER 16 Trusham Rd. EX2 8QG 01392 256 744 GATESHEAD 50 Lobley Hill Rd. NE8 4YJ 0191 493 2520 GLASGOW 280 Gt Western Rd. G4 9EJ 0141 332 9231 GLOUCESTER 221A Barton St. GL1 4HY 01452 417 948 GRIMSBY ELLIS WAY, DN32 9BD 01472 354435 HULL 8-10 Holderness Rd. HU9 1EG 01482 223161 ILFORD 746-748 Eastern Ave. IG2 7HU 0208 518 4286 IPSWICH Unit 1 Ipswich Trade Centre, Commercial Road 01473 221253 LEEDS 227-229 Kirkstall Rd. LS4 2AS 0113 231 0400 LEICESTER 69 Melton Rd. LE4 6PN 0116 261 0688 LINCOLN Unit 5. The Pelham Centre. LN5 8HG 01522 543 036 LIVERPOOL 80-88 London Rd. L3 5NF 0151 709 4484 LONDON CATFORD 289/291 Southend Lane SE6 3RS 0208 695 5684 LONDON 6 Kendal Parade, Edmonton N18 020 8803 0861 LONDON 503-507 Lea Bridge Rd. Leyton, E10 020 8558 8284 LUTON Unit 1, 326 Dunstable Rd, Luton LU4 8JS 01582 728 063 MAIDSTONE 57 Upper Stone St. ME15 6HE 01622 769 572 MANCHESTER ALTRINCHAM 71 Manchester Rd. Altrincham 0161 9412 666 MANCHESTER CENTRAL 209 Bury New Road M8 8DU 0161 241 1851 MANCHESTER OPENSHAW Unit 5, Tower Mill, Ashton Old Rd 0161 223 8376 MANSFIELD 169 Chesterfield Rd. South 01623 622160 MIDDLESBROUGH Mandale Triangle, Thornaby 01642 677881

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£ .98 Portable & adjustable 219exc.VAT Maximum lift of 1000kg £263.98 inc.VAT Solid steel Folding and fixed WAS £287.98 inc.VAT frames available Robust, rugged construction Overload safety valve

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05/05/2023 02/06/2023 14:59 09:51

Future Proof Your Land Rover

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Call Us Now on:01709 577 477 Visit our website: www.richardschassis.co.uk 11/04/2023 11:41

t s e b e h t f o 4 x 4 el from the 4x4 world. representing a particular make and mod A quartet of great modified off-roaders of the much-love Jeep Cherokee This month: Harking back to the heyday

family guy

hen people of a certain age are looking back over a life spent in the pursuit of petrolheaded happiness, one of the most common refrains you hear is ‘then the children came along.’ Almost always, it’s used to mean something like ‘then the fun stopped for fifteen years,’ or ‘and I’ve been skint ever since.’ It’s easy to sympathise. You can do more on a week at Center Parcs than it costs to fit a lift kit, a cage, a winch and a locker. Kids are the best thing ever, but there’s no surer way to get rid of all your time and all your money. And when your previous way of doing that had four wheels, it stands to reason that the smell of hot mud on your exhaust is going to be getting

38 | JULY 2023

11pp 4x4 of the Best July 23.indd 38

Words: Gary Noskill Pics: Steve Taylor

replaced by the smell of… well, you know what kids are famous for. Andrew Rogerson managed to buck that trend. Quite spectacularly, too. I’m not sure how it happened, but his entire family decided at the same time that what they needed to do was take up off-roading. Jealous much? If your kids are going to get rid of all your money, this is a pretty acceptable way for them to do it. Not that Andrew was short of a quid or two, as he already owned a Range Rover and Discovery – and so, knowing it was up to him to make the dream happen, he immediately went out and bought something Japanese. Joke. He immediately went out and completed the hat-trick by placing an order for a brand new Defender 90 Td5 XS. Yes, this

was a little while ago now, in the halcyon days when a Puma was still just a mountain lion. Not many people are able to start with a brand new vehicle, but this was also a time when there still were brand new vehicles you actually could start with. ‘I’ve always wanted to own a 4x4 with all the extra bits and pieces,’ Andrew told us. ‘I decided that as this vehicle was bought to take the kids in, I should go to town with it.’ He went to town and he also went to Cheviot 4x4, a company local to him which at the time was making a name for itself in the 4x4 game. He delivered it to them with a sum total of 900 miles under its wheels and asked them to turn it into a truck that was up to the job of showing his kids what this off-roading lark was all about.

4x4 06/06/2023 16:26

t Above left: Simex Jungle Trekkers are, in truth, far more aggressive than a family fun motor really needs. In addition to their brutal tread pattern, though, they were about the only way of getting something 33” tall and only 10.5” wide Above centre: The combination of +2” springs and +5” shocks with dislocation conea and biger trailing arms allows for plenty of articulation. Nicely colour coordinated with the coils are a set of Dan Bars which keep the steering as good as indestructible Above right: Warn HD9000i sits in a bumper from ARB whose design, along with those Simexes, is very much of a bygone era This meant safety was an even bigger priority than normal, so job number one was to fit a roll cage. ‘Land Rovers are actually made of pretty thin aluminium when you look,’ says Andrew. ‘So it was always my intention to have a cage fitted.’ It came from Safety Devices, which is a good start, and its full exo design means superior tree-rubbing skills and no intrusion on interior space. No hard metal tubes for young heads to bash into, either. Underneath, on went a suspension kit featuring +2” springs and +5” shocks. Plenty of potential for articulation there, then – and to help the vehicle achieve it, the springs and shocks were fitted along with stainless steel dislocation cones and bigger trailing arms for better droop. Dislocation was the Big Thing in 90s back then, Not that it’s gone away now, but you don’t hear people talking about it anything like as much these days. Perhaps that’s because everyone’s desperately trying to turn their 90s into blingers instead. The extra height made space for a set of 33x10.50R16 Simex Jungle Trekkers (ah, those halcyon days again) on black and chrome modular rims. Not the tallest of tyres ever to go on a 90, but you don’t often see a 33 that’s so narrow and with their brutal tread pattern, you can see why Simexes were so popular at every level of the off-road game before they joined the list of Things You Can’t Do In Britain Any More. Up front, a Warn HD9000i was installed on an ARB bumper. ‘Strong without looking ridiculously aggressive,’ we said at the time, which just goes to show that times do change. Talking of strong things, Andrew fitted front and rear diff guards as well as an aluminium fuel tank cover and rear corner protectors. The drag link and track rod were uprated to Dan Bars, while a Mantec snorkel was plumbed in along with raised axle and gearbox breathers made from flexible polyurethane. These are joined together through a unique four-into-one fitting, meaning they only require one single

4x4 11pp 4x4 of the Best July 23.indd 39

pipe to go up to the raised air intake at the top of the snorkel. Talking of air, it comes in to the Td5 engine through a K&N filter and goes out again via a straight-through mid-pipe in the exhaust. Every little helps, as they say, though with a remapped ECU a little becomes a lot – 175bhp’s worth, no less, which more than makes up for all the extra weight the 90 is carrying. There’s plenty of getup-and-go there for the road, and no shortage

of grunt for when Andrew and his family are having a good time in the mud. Grunt is also required for the 90’s day job – a rather unusual one which involves removing dead horses from where they fell. We’ve met people from a good many walks of life over the years while doing this magazine, but animal undertaker was definitely a new one. There’s a detachable towbar for hauling Andrew’s trailer to wherever its sombre duty needs to be carried

JULY 2023 | 39

06/06/2023 16:26

Above: Breathers are joined together through a unique four-into-one fitting so that only one single pipe needs to be routed up to the top of the snorkel Right: Swing-away spare wheel carrier doubles as a mount for Andrew’s high-lift jack. Detachable towbar allows the 90 to haul heavy trailers in out-of-the-way locations for work, then retain its departure angle at the weekend for play

out, and also at the back of the vehicle you’ll spot a swing-away spare wheel carrier which doubles as a mounting point for a high-lift jack. At the sharp end (everything’s relative), Andrew decided to have some auxiliary lighting installed. ‘This was mainly for the kids,’ he laughs, ‘to make the Land Rover look the part!’ With seven-inch spotlights on the bumper and aluminium chequer plate wing tops and sill protectors, it definitely has a bit of Tonka toy cool going on – and when you add in the four

40 | JULY 2023

11pp 4x4 of the Best July 23.indd 40

Hella spotlights mounted on the top of the roll cage, it’s moving nicely into larger-thanlife territory. They may or may not mainly be there for playground bragging rights, though, but being able to see what you’re doing when evening is closing in and you’re still out there on the lanes is never a bad idea either. Still, Andrew’s kids absolutely love the truck and that’s what matters most. They already liked the Range Rover and Discovery, especially the latter as it was where they got their first

taste of gentle green laning, but it was the 90 that showed them how much fun off-roading can really be and now they’re hooked. They love the way it looks, they love what it can do offroad and most of all, they love the fact that their dad did it for them. ‘I sometimes ask them which of our Land Rovers is their favourite,’ says Andrew. ‘And the black one always wins.’ He was already living the dream – and then the children came along and the dream got better than ever…

4x4 06/06/2023 16:26

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| 41 11:00 JULY 2023 11/01/2023

06/06/2023 10:20

4x4 of the best

blazing a trail

here was a time when 90s were worth so much money, you had to be very well off and/or foolhardy to modify one for off-roading. Like you’d need to be now, you’re thinking, and sure enough that time has come back around in a big way. In between times, however, 90s reached the point where everyday people could actually afford to use them off-road. Seems crazy now but use them they did, with varying degrees of brutality, while at the same time inventing no end of ways to improve the vehicle’s ability with modifications and accessories. During that time, the Td5 became the engine of choice for many people – especially once the Puma had arrived and created the new concept of a Defender you didn’t want. These days the last Td5 is more than a decade and a half old, so many have already been modded half to death and restored back to life as factory-lookers or tarts’ handbags – but back when they were new, it was incredibly rare to find one being given the off-road treatment. So the 90 you’re looking at here was a bit of a trailblazer. Experts always say you should start a project by basing it the best vehicle you can possibly afford, and that’s what Andrew Silcock

42 | JULY 2023

11pp 4x4 of the Best July 23.indd 42

Words and Pics: George McQueen

did when he pulled apart a 1999 Hard-Top while it was still under warranty. Andrew had previously owned a V8-engined Series IIA, in which he went travelling in Morocco, and a TD5 Heritage 90. What he wanted now was something that would be his daily transport while at the same time giving him the chance to have a bit of fun off-road. ‘I went round various dealers,’ he says, ‘and a chap said that if you’re looking to modify a Land Rover, the best advice he could offer was to spend as much as you could on the base vehicle. In view of what I intended to use it for, that’s what I chose to do, so I spent my entire budget at the time on the base vehicle and then later, I spent a bit more on upgrading it for green laning.’ What he got was an unusually straight 90 whose life up to that point had been as gentle as you could hope for. ‘I was looking for either a pickup or a hard-top. A lot of the commercial vehicles on the second-hand market are quite battered – I’m not a hundred percent sure, but I’m fairly confident this one hadn’t been off-road.’ In fact, it had spent the first part of its life shunting caravans around in a trailer park, which is about as gentle a job as any Defender is ever likely to have. That was to change – although, despite his plans to modify the vehicle, Andrew

had no intention of turning it into the sort of extreme machine you have to destroy in order to have any sort of fun. ‘You can spend a huge amount of money on roll cages and winches and various things which only occasionally get used,’ he says. ‘My objective was to do things that protected it and enabled me to continue to use it as a day-to-day vehicle, not damage it and be off the road for a week. So I did the front and rear diff guards, the front steering bar guard, the bull bar and the front shackles, so I can get pulled out of trouble if I have to. The diff guards were chosen for their design which ‘doesn’t rely on the integral strength of the diff to protect it. I like the style of it. The front diff guard protects the tracking arm, and the rear is extended forward slightly, protecting the rear UJ.’ Next came a steering guard and tubular front bumper, which uses the original mounts on the dumb irons but sits higher for an improved approach angle. Both came from Scorpion Racing, as did a lifted suspension kit making room for a set of 35x12.50R15 BFGoodrich Mud-Terrains. ‘I took inspiration from the North American spec model, particularly rock-crawler type Defenders,’ says Andrew. ‘They put on 37-inch or bigger tyres – mine are 35-inch, which gives

4x4 06/06/2023 16:26

Above Bikini top from Exmoor Trim provides a nice combination of shade, open-air driving and, most importantly, drop-dead gorgeous looks Right: Who knew a Wolf air intake could become a fashion item?

your axle a couple of inches’ extra height.’ That’s all he wanted to achieve, having concluded after reading various reports that two inches was about as far as you can go without unduly taxing the transmission. He wasn’t interesting in going down the whole flex-til-ya-puke line, either. ‘I didn’t go all the way, first because of the number of times I was likely to need it and second because, I think mainly from my engineering background, I felt that if your suspension on one corner has dislocated to the extent that an extreme set-up can achieve, you’ve not got much weight actually on that wheel. That is dislocated and, I thought, how can that be pulling you forward? So I wasn’t convinced that it was as effective – I wanted usability rather than spectacular looks.’ Despite keeping it simple, however, he didn’t have a completely trouble-free time of it when he was fitting the suspension. ‘I started off with the uprated springs and gas shocks. I did the rears and then, when I was halfway through the front, I couldn’t separate the old shock from the turret. So I ended up having to buy myself some of the tubular steel turrets.’ Despite this experience, and the fact that it was the first time he’s modified a vehicle himself, he considers Land Rovers to be ‘so easy to work on. It’s all big nuts and bolts.’ One of the reasons why the Td5 went on to become so popular is how well it responds to tuning. But by and large, Andrew left well alone. ‘It’s happy at seventy on the motorway,’ he says, ‘and it’s got plenty of engine braking downhill and plenty of torque for pulling uphill. And I’m not sure it needs any more than that.’ All the same, a Wolf air intake graces the usual side vent, allowing an additional four or five inches’ wading depth. Which was enough. ‘Snorkels are a lot of money for little use, and you have to do a lot of work besides the snorkel to go into deep water. You have to raise the breathers, then fit plugs and waterproof the electrics… every single time you go into water.’ At the other end, a straight pipe replaces the standard mid-section silencer box, removing one more vulnerable component and replacing it with something that sounds much better. If Andrew gets bored of listening to his 90’s exhaust note, however, he can always drown it out with a phalanx of loudspeakers, no doubt attracting the attention of all around in the process.

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On that subject, another fairly visible mod to the 90 was its metamorphosis from workaday hard-top to beach-bum cabriolet. We caught it at the end of summer, when its van panels were about to go back on, but the unusually hot weather of the preceding couple of months convinced Andrew that a dramatic solution was required. ‘The USA bikini top was inspired by the heatwave, it got so hot. I got it from Exmoor Trim. It comes with a hoop, door tops and an alloy strip that runs along the top of the windscreen.’ Combined with the big tyres, this gives the 90 its larger-than-life fun-truck look. And, ironically, it’s those boots that led to the soft-top appearing in the first place. ‘The big wheels and tyres weigh about 45kg apiece, and that kind of weight soon wrecks the back door of a hard-top. So I went for the Mantec swing-away carrier, which is hinged on the bodywork, not the door. I found that this means I can whip off the roof and the back door, and there it is – perfect for the bikini top.’ Another way in which the American 90 inspired Andrew was in the altogether more prosaic subject of lighting. At the back, a full set of NASspec lights replaced the famously puny UK items, while a set of 150W PIAA bulbs have made their home in the vehicle’s headlamps. These modifications aren’t the kind that set the hills on fire, but they do turn a standard 90 into an altogether more appropriate vehicle for use

on today’s roads. Andrew even reckons that the two-inch lift hasn’t done any harm to the vehicle’s handling, such is the quality of the gas shocks. Even so, he did uprate the front springs by 25% in anticipation of adding a winch at some stage in the vehicle’s development. Not that he’s in any rush to do so: ‘This is my daily transport. If you need a winch, you’re likely to be doing more extreme work, and I can’t do that because I don’t have a roll cage.’ That was on the list when we spoke to Andrew, as were ARB Air-Lockers and triangular towing windows for the van panels. But then he went and got a new job that was going to mean spending half his life travelling around Europe, and so the 90 had to find a new home. We don’t know where that was, but someone somewhere got a very nice truck for their money. Which of course they could see with their own eyes, but would they have realised that they were taking on one of the first Td5s ever to be modified for off-roading? Perhaps they would, because after all this whole story dates from only about halfway through the engine’s life as Land Rover’s mill of choice. Thousands of them have been off-roaded and modified since then, but very few have ever been done like Andrew’s. It was a trendsetter, this 90 – and all these years later, it’s still a shining example of how to do a Defender.

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4x4 of the best

not a 90…

ne of the absolute truths of 4x4 projects is that they never end up exactly the way their builders intended. If they end up in any sort of recognisable form at all – as opposed to being given up on altogether in complete despair – they’re normally far better than they would have been had their proud owners stuck with Plan A.

Words and Pics: Andy Lauchlan This is ironic, because few people set out with the intention of creating anything less than the most unstoppable off-road dream machine of all time. And that may well be the reason why so many projects get abandoned. When you’ve started out with dreams of ultimate all-terrain ability, settling for something that’s merely good, and hopefully doesn’t catch fire too often, can’t help but feel like a bit of an anticlimax.

Those who stick it out, however, normally find that toning down their plans is the key to creating a vehicle that actually works. And the Land Rover you’re looking at on these pages is a fine example of… well, pretty much exactly the opposite. Because when owner Fraser Wenseth started work on it, what he intended to build was a tidy coil-sprung motor for the road. Not that he was after a show pony. This was a time when that kind of Defender didn’t really exist – and even if it had, Fraser was used to competing at the highest level of the winching game so any Land Rover of his was going to be a proper one. ‘I was fed up with my Series III not being able to get up the big hills my mates could with their coil-sprung V8 Range Rovers and 90s,’ he explains. ‘I couldn’t afford a 90, so I set about building my own.’ This is one of those matter-of-fact comments you expect to hear from professional mechanics or garage owners to whom the prospect of building a vehicle from scratch is about as big a deal as going to the toilet. But in Fraser’s case things were rather different. ‘Being a manager for Tesco, I didn’t know anything about building Land Rovers. So this was a learning curve.’ The first lesson was that when you replace your old 7.50s with a set of Dirt Devils, you can no longer rely on staying healthy by always losing traction before things get interesting. ‘I found myself getting all sorts of places and in all sorts of trouble,’ recalls Fraser. ‘You can tell it’s been on its roof a couple of times, can’t you?’ The roof in question is that of a truck cab, which is the configuration Fraser had aimed for from the start. But that’s about all that remained of his original plans, because the arrival of the Dirt Devils gave a whole new dimension to the vehicle’s off-road capabilities. And, there and then, a simple hybrid build turned into something altogether more adventurous. By now, it was obvious that the vehicle was going to be used for far more extreme off-road work than had initially been intended. A six-point external roll cage was among Fraser’s first responses, and a Warn 8274-50 mounted on a home-made front bumper came along soon afterwards. Thus armed, he was in a position to start competing in

A Rover SD1 gave up its life, and its V8 engine, so Fraser could get up the sort of hills that used to defeat his old Series III. A home-made winch bumper with a Warn 8274-50 on top ensures that even if he can’t do it the noisy way, he’ll get there eventually

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“The best accessory, according to Fraser, is the fire extinguisher in the cab. You already know there’s a grisly story attached to this. In fact, there are two” challenge events. But inevitably this was the end of the beginning, not the beginning of the end. Needless to say, the arrival of challenge work meant it wasn’t long before Fraser was introduced to the joys of the diff and halfshaft (blown). And what better excuse could a man want to tool up with a couple of ARB Air-Lockers? Wisely, these feed out through a set of strengthened 24-spline halfshafts from Ashcroft, which meant appending later ABS hubs to the hybrid’s axles. These were donated by the 1974 Range Rover that laid down its life for the project. Providing the motive power is a 3.5-litre V8 that was robbed from a Rover SD1. It breathes in through a Camel Trophy snorkel and out through a custom stainless exhaust from a local specialist. This replaced the old unit, itself cannibalised from a Range Rover EFi system, as Fraser kept knocking it off. ‘They did a cracking job of bending the tubing to keep it above the chassis line,’ says Fraser, ‘and it sounds great to boot.’ Initially, the engine ran on carburettors, but the rigours of extreme off-road action meant they were constantly falling out of tune. The remedy was a Lucas hotwire system from a 3.9 EFi – which, contrary to what you might expect, was a cinch to install, with only three wires needing

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to be connected to the home-made loom. An electronic distributor replaced the V8’s temperamental points-type unit at the same time. ‘I reckon this was the single biggest improvement,’ says Fraser. ‘The motor hasn’t missed a beat since and is probably 20bhp up on power.’ Did someone say ‘power’? That’ll be the gearbox on the way out, then. When we met Fraser, he told us that the vehicle was on its fourth LT77 in six years, and that’s a whole scrap bin full of trophies. The transfer box behind it turns long-travel props, allowing the drivetrain to cope with the flexibility of a suspension set-up mating long-travel coil springs with +2” Pro-Comp shocks. Nothing too radical there, and Fraser has an interesting point of view on the sort of RTI-busting suspension rigs that were all the rage when he was building his truck. ‘I wouldn’t waste money on the extreme kit. A decent set of tyres and the ARBs will get you most places anyway.’ The relatively simple spring and shock combo he went with, on the other hand, was ‘money well spent’. Fraser initially opted to uprate the truck’s suspension as the old Range Rover kit was beginning to groan under the load of all the extra weight it was being asked to carry, but the additional flexibility the vehicle displays with its new

set-up in place would be reason enough for most off-roaders to consider it worth the investment. Adding to the extra weight is a rear-mounted Superwinch Husky, chosen specifically because its worm drive means there’s no brake in it to overheat – something that used to be a thorn in the side of challenge competitors on sections requiring vehicles to be lowered long distances while hanging on their cables. With the arrival of the second winch, however, Fraser hit another problem. Or rather, an existing problem started to become a whole lot more acute. The truck-cab format is unquestionably ideal for extreme off-roading, but it’s not exactly favourite when it comes to carrying equipment – and in off-roading, as the saying goes, you’re only as good as your gear. Fraser had already solved some of the stowage problems within the cab by building a cubby box to fit snugly between the vehicle’s twin Cobra bucket seats. Trimmed in vinyl, this is slightly bigger than Land Rover’s own – but it still wasn’t enough to address the problem of where stuff was going to go in the back once the winch was in place. ‘Myself and my challenge co-driver John spent an entireday moving the rear around to

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Fraser set out to build a nice, sensible coilsprung Land Rover for the road. As you can see here, he got waylaid somewhere down the line and ended up with something much nicer and more sensible instead work out how to make everything accessible for him when we were competing,’ Fraser recalls. ‘We eventually shoved the spare up on to one of the wheel boxes, with a big locker on the other side, divided into sections for strops, shackles, chains and so on. A set of wheel chocks are fixed down to the rear of the fuel cell, then a German army waterproof ammunition box is sandwiched between these and the winch. This contains a basic spares and tools pack I carry everywhere, and has been used to fix many other vehicles apart from my own. Oh, and there’s room for a couple of jerry cans down either side… well, it is a V8!’ However the best accessory, according to Fraser, is the fire extinguisher in the cab. You al-

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ready know there’s a grisly story attached to this. In fact, there are two. ‘We had an oil fire on a challenge event while suspended by the winch cable on a 50-degree slope,’ recalls Fraser, who rates this, not unreasonably, as his ‘scariest moment so far’ with the vehicle. ‘And then we had another one, after some over-enthusiastic driving at the Hillrally left me with a punctured oil filter that sprayed all the engine oil over the hot exhaust, with predictable results. It managed to empty the sump in fifteen seconds! And I was only there as marshal…’ Talking of marshalling, that’s a large part of where Fraser gets his off-road kicks. ‘The motor spends most of its time at club trial events, fun days and doing recovery and marshalling at

comps. And for that, 235/85x16 Greenway Machos are just the job.’ He told us that only doing a few challenge events every year, he couldn’t justify spending big money on hardcore rubber, but he had a set of second-hand Simexes on standby for when it was time to go winching with the big boys. The two sets of tyres point to the two sides of the hybrid’s character – trim, sorted and more than capable of its day job on one hand, and ready to punch above its weight on the other. It’s not one of those ultimate off-road wet dreams so many people set out with the intention of building… but then, it was never meant to be. And that’s probably why it’s closer to realising that standard than most starry-eyed projects ever get.

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24/05/2023 16:02

4x4 of the best

one V8 or two?

or most people, it’s enough to have one 3.5-litre V8-powered vehicle in your life. John Duerden, however, is not most people. When it comes to V8 cars of your dreams, one was not enough. We’ll get the little red one out of the way first. It’s an F355 you’re looking at, lest you not know your Ferraris. Except you’re not looking at it, are you? You’re looking the 90 next to it. This was a tired

Words: Paul Looe Pics: Harry Hamm

old 2.5 airhead once, but then someone fitted a V8 and went off ragging it in quarries. Safe to say that someone was not John. He was the second owner after quarry guy and he resolved to make the 90 right. To start at the beginning, the V8 that replaced that old 2.5 diesel started its life in a Range Rover. It was adapted to slide in beneath the 90’s bonnet, where it mates to the original LT77 gearbox and LT230 transfer case. It was also converted to run on LPG, which is something

you’d only do to a Ferrari if you wanted a baying mob of swivel-eyed classic car enthusiasts to turn up at your house with burning crosses in their hands. Downstream of here, a set of new propshafts in standard spec mate to the original Land Rover axles. The word ‘original’ is getting used a lot here, and in this case it means the vehicle has the old-style drum-braked rear as well as two-pin diffs, as opposed to the four-pin units that would have used on a factory V8.

Above and top right: John made the false floor for the pick-up bed himself by folding some ally plate around a sheet of ply. He might be a Ferrari-owning stock market trader, but he’s still a farmer at heart

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Above: The 90 started life as a 2.5 diesel, but that changed two owners ago. These days, a 3.5 V8 sits proudly beneath the bonnet Right, from the top: With the V8 being a repower job, and the vehicle itself being from the very early 90s, the fact that it’s on its original axles means it has two-pin diffs all round and, at the back, drum brakes. If you think you’re looking at an A-frame in the bottom pic, well, you are. But look beyond it and you’ll see the unmistakable shape of an LPG tank That didn’t stop John from dressing the hubs with a set of 16” Boost alloys and 265/75R16 BFGoodrich Mud-Terrains, however. These go with a cheerfully lavish metallic black paint scheme to make it instantly obvious that this is not your everyday 90 – as if the chrome styling bar battling for attention with that stainless steel chimney could have left you in any doubt of that. There’s a lot about the vehicle that’s there to look pretty, but that doesn’t stop it being as practical as any other short-wheelbase truck-cab. More so, in fact, thanks to a nifty loadspace cover John made up himself by folding chequer plate around a sheet of ply, creating a false floor that protects the cargo beneath by keeping it out of sight and out of mind. The materials cost ‘a few quid’ (he trades in the stock market for a living, but he’s from a farming background) and the effect is as good as you’d get from a product costing hundreds. The most awkward part of the job was correctly positioning a hole in the cover to fit snugly around the exhaust stack. Sounds easy, but think about how you’d actually go about doing it and you may well get a headache. Having got round that and dropped the finished sheet into place, where it sits on the wheel boxes, a bead of silicon sealant all round the edge keeps the compartment below it from turning into a dank cave with a mouldy roof. The visual effect, which relies a lot on you liking the look of ally plate, is finished off by a similarly clad tubular bumper extension on the rear crossmember. There’s more of the same beneath the standard-fit sills – ‘beneath,’ rather than ‘instead of,’ because the originals are retained (clad, naturally, in chequer plate).

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There’s yet more of the stuff on top of the original-style front bumper, which is also home to a tubular A-bar in eyeball-searing stainless steel. Evidence of the vehicle’s off-road past comes in the shape of heavy-duty diff and steering guards, then up on top of the front wings you’ll find, who’d have thunk it, chequerplate protectors. These house a pair of KBX Hi-Force vents for the heater intake, adding further to the street machine image. So too, in a very Land Rover sort of way, does the external roll cage. Unless you’re a comp safari scrutineer, in which case it would give you a fit. It’s only attached to the body (the front wings just ahead of the bulkhead, and the rear

of the roof) so although it might well save your life if you go over slowly, it’s not going to keep the vehicle up in a mighty one. It’ll help protect the cab from trees, though, given the chance, and far more to the point it provides the perfect mount for a set of four LED spotlights. These have integral ring-shaped daytime running lights and could therefore be expected to have cost an arm and a leg, but by the wonders of Amazon John paid a tastily modest forty quid for the lot. Closer inspection reveals that the lights haven’t actually been wired up yet, which is because it’s one of those jobs John’s mate has promised to do but never quite got round to.

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But the Mantec snorkel next to the right A-post is safely plumbed to the airbox, so if John were somehow to be able to get into water that deep without his HT system waving the white flag, his engine would at least live to fight another day. Not that he’s interested in that kind of carry on, at least not behind the wheel of a truck he loves for the amount of attention it gets (all of it positive, which is something we doubt he can say about that Ferrari). He’s no stranger to the world of lairy off-road antics, however, having owned a V8 Lightweight as his first car at the age of 17. The phrase ‘V8 Lightweight’ can evoke images of crude brutality, but this one wasn’t just your average zero-frills RTV smoker. It was bright red and had chrome exhausts running down its sills, Cobra-style. It was, John admits with an element of understatement, ‘quite a lairy sort of vehicle.’ Not that he didn’t use it the way a V8 Lightweight, or any Lightweight short of a concours winner for that matter, begs to be used. ‘Safety wasn’t a big thing back then. I used to take the doors off it, fold the windscreen down… I did almost roll it once or twice, but we didn’t care about that sort of thing in those days, did we?’ Having somehow managed to remain alive for the intervening two decades, owning a couple of standard farm-hack 110s in the process, he found himself coming back to Landies when, after five years of living in Manchester, he returned to the countryside. ‘I’d only had one car parking space in town. But then we moved back to the country and I wanted a runaround, and I thought the best thing for that is a Land Rover. That’s when I happened to find this one.’

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As we’ve already established, he’s not been slow to stamp his own mark on what was already a very distinctive truck. His most recent addition was a pair of brand new Recaros, and further gear in the cabin includes a sports steering wheel and a Raptor centre console, in which sits a DVD stereo with Bluetooth and iPhone dock. As we were sat on board chatting with John about the Landy, his phone was there on the top of the dash displaying real-time movements in stock market prices. This, then, isn’t your average story about a man from down on t’farm who’s rebuilt a 90 for his everyday car. It’s the tale of someone who loves his toys – and, having found a Land Rover that was well down the road to being just what he wanted, was ready to roll up his sleeves and take it the rest of the way.

‘I just think they’re a classic icon,’ he muses. ‘And they’re fun, really. I mean, you could actually name more bad points about a Land Rover than good points – you’ve got to really like them to put up with them! But it’s a good status symbol. It doesn’t matter what it looks like, you can go anywhere in them, turn up to parties or whatever, and people don’t bother.’ Here’s a man who’s turned up to parties in all manner of eye candy from the likes of Mercedes and BMW, owned an MGB Roadster when he was in his teens and of, course, now has just about the ultimate make-a-statement motor. ‘But I’d always prefer an old 90 to a Range Rover Sport or something like that,’ he concludes. ‘It doesn’t mean it’s a dream car to drive, or it’s well designed or anything. But it’s keeping it real. There’s just nothing like it.’

4x4 06/06/2023 16:28

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08/03/2023 14:35

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WELL I’LL BE DAMMED Exploring the back roads you normally hurry past can lead you to all manner of seldom and Fruid we found a landscape brimming with history – and discovered, or possibly

ost of us have roads we drive time after time and get to know well. The corners, the junctions, the scenery, the fun bits, the dodgy bits… and, if you’re anything like me, the road signs pointing out unknown places away to your left and right. Decades ago, a regular journey between my home in Edinburgh and my university at St Andrews led me past a sign to Puddledub and Auchtertool. You tend not to forget names like that. A few years later, living in East Kent, I was delighted to discover that there’s a sign pointing to Ham and Sandwich. I bet there are plenty of people in Britain who regularly travel up and down the M6, over the high bit north between Lancaster and Carlisle, and wonder what Shap is like but have always been too busy putting down the miles to take a detour and ﬁnd out. No doubt you could add roads and names of your own to the list. Even if you’ve never seen it for yourself, that famous sign pointing to Lost has become the stuff of folklore. There’s a stand-up comedian who named himself Boothby Graffoe after seeing a sign to it. Back in Kent, I always used to wonder what Brenzett had done to deserve such a huge sign on the M20. Bar Hill, Warninglid, Cerney Wick… Places which might not be exotic, but which gain a mystique in your mind from becoming at once unknown yet also so very familiar. Life for me has moved on from the days of Puddledub and Auchtertool, of Ham and of Sandwich. But Edinburgh has always been home… and over the last few years, I’ve got to know the absolutely wonderful stretch of road that cuts across the sprawling, majestic hills between Scotland’s capital and the town of Moffat. On the way north, it’s the perfect antidote after a three-hour slog on the motorway. As well as being a fantastic driving route, it’s a journey that’s speckled with points of interest. I’ve always meant to stop at the roadside and read the plaque on the war memorial in Blyth Bridge, take a walk to the edge of the Devil’s Beef Tub and check out Tweed’s Well,

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Words and Pictures: Alan Kidd

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seen places. They might not be off-road as such, but when we followed a sign to Talla invented, the new SUV-friendly pastime of grey laning…

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the source of the river famous as one of the world’s best for salmon fishing. And maybe one day I will, but in each case I’m always too busy enjoying the sweeping corners and sweeping scenery. But a few miles to the north of Tweed’s Well, what finally proved too tempting to ignore was another of those road signs. This one points to Talla and Fruid. Names that sound like you might expect to hear them in Tahiti, or the Yukon, or in Norse mythology. What even are they, I always wondered as I drove past the intriguing looking finger post in the tiny hamlet of Tweedsmuir. Is it a sign to two places called Talla and Fruid, or one called Talla Fruid? Are they villages? Mountains? Lands accessible only via the back of Professor Kirke’s wardrobe? Finally, after some years of this, at last a journey south from Edinburgh found me with enough time to explore. Enough time and a Porsche. If this was a story about twisting B-roads, the Porsche you’d want would be a Boxster or Cayman S. I’ve had that pleasure, in the dim and distant past, but what I found was a world in which you definitely want an SUV. Within seconds, the road to Talla and Fruid was barely a road

at all. Surfaced, yes – but rough, undulating and narrow enough only for one car at a time. You’d think twice before taking a Cayenne green laning, especially solo and without a winch; instead, this is a story about what you might call grey laning. They’re sealed roads, but in every other respect their character is that of a byway. And the Cayenne? It’s from 2005, making it one of the first of its kind in the UK, and it has low range and all the off-road kit Porsche could muster at the time. It’s a Cayenne S, powered by a 4.5-litre V8 engine – which can hardly be run in, because the vehicle has only covered about 12,000 miles in its life. Actually, of course, Porsche owners get their vehicles delivered with the engines already run in. It’s one of those little things the company gives you for your money. Even if you’re not in the market for a new one, though, Porsche can still give you something for your money. Our Cayenne is basically a self-propelled showcase for the accessories its dealers can retro-fit – including all-terrain tyres, a roof rack and cargo box, auxiliary lights and traction equipment. It’s also fitted with the latest addition to the company’s

accessory range for vehicles of a certain age, an infotainment module allowing you to run modern media apps like Apple CarPlay; this alone costs about £1200 plus VAT and the cost of having it fitted, but when media matters so much in a modern vehicle there’s a lot of would-be owners who’ll see it as essential. And even with this factored in, you could build a Cayenne like ours

for less than ten grand. Finding one with all the off-road kit is tricky, with so few having been specced that way from new, but early models start at about two and a half grand if you don’t mind a leggy one. As always, though, good advice is to start by getting the best vehicle you can possibly afford and taking it from there. So, we’re in a good vehicle with the right stuff to keep us moving over all sorts of roads and trails. We know from experience that the Cayenne can cut it in genuinely rough off-road conditions, so it’s going to be well within its comfort zone here. It’s on BFG KO2s, so there’s going to be no shortage of traction where the tarmac does fully give way, and though 265/60R18s would once have been considered ridiculously low-profile for a 4x4, by today’s standards there’s actually quite a lot of sidewall there. We’d take this on a proper green laning trip, so long as it was with a buddy and a rope. That’s for another day. Right now, we’re heading away from civilisation on narrow little roads whose des-

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tination we don’t really know. Talla and Fruid, presumably… It’s Fruid that comes ﬁrst. And here, we learn what these places actually are. Fruid appears to be the name of a farm at the head of a wide, steep-sided valley – but what puts it on the map, and the road sign, is something that began here towards the end of the Victorian era. Towards the end of the 19th Century, the Edinburgh was growing fast. Its population had more than quadrupled in a hundred years, from 90,000 to approaching 400,000 people, and the city was struggling to cope. Overcrowding was chronic, disease was rife and the need for fresh water was desperate. And the rate of population increase was showing no signs of slowing down. Against this background, the Edinburgh and District Water Trust needed a new water supply. At around the same time that Birmingham Corporation was getting to work on the Elan Valley, engineers from the EDWT were submitting reports identifying Talla as the perfect location for a new reservoir

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– and a few years before the turn of the century, the land was bought for £20,000 (around £2,100,000 in today’s money) from the Earl of Wemyss and March Estates. Construction began on 29 September 1897, with a stone-laying ceremony for Victoria Lodge – a Scots Renaissance building which would serve as headquarters of the Edinburgh Water Company. It still stands today, at one end of the dam built during the subsequent seven and a half years. By now, a dedicated railway had been built to serve the construction works; the stone-laying ceremony also marked its oﬃcial opening, with a special service bringing dignitaries from Edinburgh to the end of the line at Victoria Lodge itself. The Talla Branch ran some eight miles from the village of Broughton and was used for transporting materials to the site – as well as bringing in labourers, with a very popular special halt at a wayside inn which the railway operator had very shrewdly bought a share of when work on the dam was about to commence.

You can still see remnants of where the railway line used to run as you drive between Edinburgh and Moffat on the A701. It followed the same line of the road, which in turn follows the line of the Tweed, and while the rails are long gone (the line was lifted in 1912), the occasional patch of flattened ground or item of lineside furniture remains to tell the tale. So too does the pipeline itself, most notably just north-east of Tweedsmuir where a steel viaduct carries it across the river amid rambling farmland. Talla’s story is brought up to date with the addition of Fruid. Located just to the south, it was completed in 1968 with the purpose of supplementing the main reservoir. And it’s where we ended up first, our exploration of the grey lanes leading us around the edge of the forested hills between the two as we skirted Fruid Water and finally came to the dam itself. Like Talla, Fruid is held back by an earthwork dam.

It’s grassed over, so you almost don’t notice it as you approach, but then you see the spillway on its far side – which was going some when we visited, thanks to several days of heavy rain which had left the countryside soaking wet. You can pull over and get out to explore on foot – though a sign on the gate warned us of adders in the area, which was a bit of a ﬁrst. Someone hadn’t been able to resist the temptation to add ‘and subtracters’ underneath…

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Off-road and expedition equipment like all-terrain tyres, traction aids, roof-top stowage and auxiliary lighting is not necessarily what you associate with the Porsche Cayenne. Cutting-edge stereo equipment certainly is, though – and along with all the adventure kit, this one has been retro-fitted with a modern system running the latest phone pairing technology. Not that you need music when you’ve got a 4.5-litre V8 to enjoy listening to…

The road is shown as a yellow on the OS map, but after the dam it becomes a white – and you feel that as you drive it, too. It gets narrower than it already was and, as you pass a wonderfully bluff 1960s’ control house at the water’s edge, the surface becomes rougher, looser – it’s still a road, just, but only one level above what you might call a Cat A track. There’s quite a variety of warning signs on the verge, too, leaving you in no doubt as to the dire consequences of taking any chances with the water. Fruid is classed as a small reservoir, but it doesn’t feel that way as you trundle along its north-eastern edge in the lee of Craig Law, Brawns Dod and the almost classical sounding Capilus Hill. It’s steep sided to your left, with plenty of scree and loose rock fields among the thick stands of Scots Pine, but save for the road itself the only sign of human activity is a lone corrugated iron shed a little way upstream of the dam. What it’s there for is anybody’s guess.

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If you could see beneath the gently rippling surface of the water, though, you’d see a number of farms that were submerged in the weeks following the completion of the dam as the valley started to flood. Fruid, Carterhope and Hawkshaw were all lost, as was the site of the 12th Century Fruid Castle. This stood right at the head of what’s now the reservoir, just beyond the modern-day Fruid farmhouse – a handsome and typically Scottish stone building that now marks the end of the road. We clocked it at just under four miles from the dam to the farm and back again, which doesn’t sound like much on a ‘surfaced’ road but felt like quite the mission. All the best green lanes combine beautiful views with splendid isolation and make for an interesting drive to boot – and as it turns out, grey laning ain’t so different either. It’s the same story at Talla, though this time the grey lane is a through route. This means there’s much more traffic on it – we counted one car in the course of about an hour

and a half. At the junction, a crossroads in the centre of which the names ‘Talla’, ‘Meggat’, ‘Menzion’ and ‘Fruid’ are hand-painted on a hefty stone-built structure that looks a lot like a relic from the old railway, you set off past a gaggle of impressive houses and into a wide valley with forestry climbing its flanks above the farmland that skirts the lane. Then perhaps a mile further on, you come to the dam. Like Fruid, this is an earthwork structure whose face is covered in grass. Under its surface is a mixture of clay, gravel and sand, with the watertight barrier within it made from the same puddled clay that lines the bed of the canal network. More than 100,000 tons of material were brought to the site, much of it from a quarry in Edinburgh – which, later became a landfill site and, if you know the city, is now Craigleith Retail Park. Edinburgh residents still talk about going to ‘Sainsbury’s at the quarry’ to this day. The lane swings hard left when it reaches the dam, rather unusually

crossing it about halfway up its gently sloping face. Two elegant iron fences keep you from straying as you go; ahead of you, off to the left, is Victoria Lodge, now a private home, while directly ahead is a pumping station whose gentle sandstone architecture couldn’t be more difference than the concrete edifice at Fruid. From here, the landscape gets ever more austere as you go. Beyond the reservoir’s steely surface, the hulking slopes of Garelet Hill loom over you; far ahead, the head of the valley splits in two and a faint line climbing steeply up the flank of the menacing Carlavin Hill is your only indication of where the lane will soon be taking you. First, there’s a surprise in store as you turn right across the head of the reservoir, through a landscape of scree and flood deposits that looks almost like something from Iceland. You feel that you’re in a wilderness, but then all of a sudden you’re passing another farmhouse. Idyllic or desolate? Either way, just like at

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Talla was the first reservoir to be built here, back in the late Victorian era when Edinburgh’s population was growing at an almost exponential rate. A small car park at the end of the dam is positioned opposite Victoria Lodge, now a private home, which was once the water company’s headquarters and also served as the terminus for the railway which carried more than 100,000 tons of materials to the site during the dam’s construction – remnants of which are still visible alongside the A701 to Edinburgh today

Fruid it’s a tidy, well kept building in a traditional Scottish style. Enough of that. The lane swings right, as if to head up the Gameshope valley (there is a rough track up there, but it’s not for motor vehicles), then sharply back to the left. Suddenly, Scotland’s version of the Elan Valley has become Scotland’s version of the Wrynose Pass – it’s only for a few hundred yards, but the gradient is as sharp and the drop-off as breathtaking. If you dare to look to the left, you’ll see almost the whole of Talla stretched out on the valley floor. Once again, these are roads you could in theory drive in any car. They’re not for taking quickly, though, but for savouring – and the higher up you’re sat, the more of the view there is to savour. That’s what makes them so perfect for exploring by SUV – and if you want to enjoy the fun bits on the way to and from the grey lanes, an SUV like the Cayenne has the performance and, in particular, the handling to make the most of them. Not that you need to be going fast on the way up the hill that climbs and climbs as you leave Talla behind, not indeed when you finally emerge into the hanging valley above. If you were putting your foot down, for example, you might miss the Megget Stone, an ancient watershed marker that’s stood by the side of the track here for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. Actually, you might miss it anyway as a more recent edifice, the fences alongside a cattle grid, hide it almost completely from view.

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Further on, yet another isolated farmhouse marks the head of a Megget Reservoir. This was created more recently than Talla and Fruid, being opened in 1983; by the shore are the foundations of James V’s Cramalt Tower, which were excavated and reconstructed here before the rising water covered their original site. The lane here is a little less remote than at Talla and Fruid, but as before you’re on a single carwidth of basic roadway with never a white line in sight. There are various opportunities to park up, which is always a good thing to do amid a landscape like this, before you pass by the dam (once again grassed, though this time the waterproof core is made of asphalt) and, some way further on, emerge at a T-junction with the A708. To start with, this feels like being thrown on to the M25 – until you realise that there still aren’t any other vehicles around. Precious few, at least, if any at all. Though when you get to the Grey Mare’s Tail, as you follow the road towards Moffat, you might discover where they’ve all gone. Ahead of you as you reach the A-road, the body of water in the distance is St Mary’s Loch – a natural masterpiece this time, rather than the work of man. Into it flows a variety of small streams

from the south, which tumble down the sides of a stunning glacial valley. In the case of the Grey Mare’s Tail, it does so via a 200-foot waterfall. Above it, the 821m White Coomb is among the highest mountains in southern Scotland. We’re big fans of exploring the world on four wheels here, and of taking the road less travelled. Tourist stuff ain’t our bag. But don’t be put off is there are crowds around the Mare’s Tail car park. These are not souvenir shoppers or photo-baggers. There’s a hike if you want to see the best views of the fall, and some serious climbing to be done to get all the way up to Loch Skeen, in the hanging valley whose outflow it is that plunges over the rocky edge down below. The road along the valley floor is one of the most spectacular in Britain, but don’t rush it – even if you’re in an SUV capable of

melting tarmac, this is a landscape to be savoured. There’s no real sign of what’s about to happen as you follow the road along the edge of the loch. It’s beautiful, gentle and in the right conditions, sun-dappled, but this is the kind of road which, aboard the Cayenne, felt like it was goading me to put my foot down. There’s a brief break and then you’re alongside another, smaller body of water, the Loch of the Lowes, enjoying a sweeping vista to your left as you enjoy the sort of road that was just made for an athletic SUV like the Porsche. This carries on for a while after you leave the water behind, but as it does so the valley sides flanking you get almost imperceptibly taller and steeper. When the landscape changes, though, it happens suddenly. You’ve just passed a sign welcoming you

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to Dumfries and Galloway, and a couple of old cottages to your left, when the road starts to plunge into a long, tight, steep sided valley. The hillside to your left is immediate and, from the driver’s seat, endless; to your right, it carries on dropping down towards a the tiny stream which, through aeons of erosion, is what created this might landscape in the first place. It’s shortly after you’ve finally descended to the valley floor that you find the Mare’s Tail car park. And beyond here, it continues to be an SUV driver’s dream – though you need to keep on top of your instincts to cut loose, because there are some very deceptive crests and corners on the way. As you climb out of the old glacial valley and into a slightly softer landscape, you’re no long grey laning – now, it’s the kind of road that sports car and hot hatch drivers dream of. It would be a B-road in many parts of the country, but up here it’s worthy of A-class status – though thankfully without the traffic to ruin it. We passed a few cars coming the other way but were never once held up – we didn’t even have to unleash that big V8 to get past anyone. And soon, we were pulling into Moffat. Even this is a treat – a market town the way they should be done, with a bustling centre that’s there to serve a populace of locals and farmers, not gawping tourists. Well, the legendary Moffat Toffee Shop probably does quite well from the likes of us, but it still would if we lived there so that doesn’t count. With its roof box and eye-catching graphics, our Cayenne definitely stood out in the middle of town. It wasn’t covered in mud the way it would have been after a session on the ‘real’ lanes, but without any of these available in Scotland I reckon we had found the next best thing. There’s a good many people who own SUVs, whether high-powered monsters like the Porsche or just everyday family 4x4s, and would never dream of taking them off-road for fear of the damage their precious cars might suffer. It might sound contrived, but perhaps grey laning is the answer. There are roads so tiny, so remote, they might as well not be roads at all – and in a vehicle you don’t want to risk, there’s adventure aplenty to be found by exploring them. So next time you come to one of those signposts, why not follow it and see where it leads? Who knows what you might discover.

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MAG

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ROADBOOK

NORTH NOTTINGHAMSHIRE A varied set of lanes in a seldom-visited part of the country

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ROADBOOK The rights of way in the Bassetlaw area are very varied indeed. Most are well surfaced and suitable to drive all year round in almost any 4x4, however a few of those you’ll encounter in this route are only open from the start of May to the end of September. The reason soon becomes clear; in the past, their surface has been cut up by vehicular use when the ground has been wet, leaving deep ruts which remain today. You shouldn’t take this one on without a means of recovery, therefore – though by and large, it’s just a gentle day in the country

USING OUR ROADBOOKS Our roadbooks guide you through the countryside on a mixture of surfaced and unsurfaced roads. The tracks we use are public rights of way, either Byways Open to All Traﬃc or Unclassiﬁed County Roads, all commonly referred to as green lanes.

NAVIGATION

We’ve deliberately made it as easy as possible to follow the route, using a mixture of instructions, tulip diagrams and grid references. We normally only include junctions at which you have to make a turning or don’t have right of way, so stay on the main road or continue straight ahead unless we tell you otherwise. You’ll ﬁnd a guide to using grid references on the legend of any OS map. Our aim is for you to be able to do the route without maps, whether paper or online, but you should certainly take a set with you.

SAFETY

The notes on thee pages advise you of how suitable the route is for your vehicle. These are just guidelines, however. We’ll warn you of any hazards or diﬃcult sections, but the nature of any green lane can change quickly. Wet weather can make a huge difference to the conditions underfoot, and what’s wide open in winter can be tightly enclosed and scratchy in summer. The responsibility is yours! Our roadbooks are designed to be safe to drive in a solo vehicle. We do recommend travelling in tandem wherever possible, however. The risk of getting stuck can be greater than it appears – and even the most capable of vehicles can break down miles from anywhere.

RESPONSIBILITY

Irresponsible driving is a big issue on green lanes. In particular, you must always stay on the right of way. Never drive off it to ‘play’ on the verges or surrounding land, even if you can see that someone else has; doing so is illegal and can be tremendously damaging. This kind of illegal off-roading is a key reason why green lanes get closed. If you see others doing this, they are NOT your friends. They’re criminals, and you are their victim. If it’s safe to do so, ﬁlm them in the act and pass it to the police.

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Elsewhere, let common sense and courtesy prevail. Keep your speed down, be ready to pull over for others and show the world that we are decent people just like them.

ANTIS

Anti-4x4 bigotry does exist, but it’s less common than you’d think. By and large, it’s limited to organisations who just want to get the countryside all to themselves. These organisations are beyond being reasoned with, but it’s rare to encounter real hostility even from their rank-and-ﬁle members. If you’re friendly towards the people with whom you share the countryside, the vast majority will respond in kind. There are always bad apples, but no more so than anywhere else. Likewise, most local residents will accept your presence if you’re driving sensibly. What suspicion you do encounter is likely to be from farmers worried that you’re there to steal from them, so be ready to offer a word of reassurance. Once satisﬁed that you’re not after their quad bikes, their mood will lighten.

DO…

• Keep your speed right down • Pull over to let walkers, bikers and horse riders pass

• Leave gates as you found them • Scrupulously obey all closure and voluntary restraint notices

• Ensure you have a right to be

there. We research the routes on our roadbooks very carefully, but the status of any route can change without notice Be prepared to turn back if the route is blocked, even illegally If you ﬁnd an illegal obstruction, notify the local authority Stick absolutely scrupulously to the right of way Always remember that you are an ambassador for all 4x4 drivers

• • • •

DON’T…

• Go in large convoys: instead, split into smaller groups

• Drop litter. Why not carry a bin bag pick up other people’s instead?

• Go back to drive the fun bits, such as mud or fords, again

• Cause a noise nuisance, particularly after dark

• Get riled up if someone challenges you. Be ﬁrm but polite, stay calm and don’t let them turn it into a ﬁght

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ROUTE GUIDE

is it suitable?

START FINISH HOW LONG? TERRAIN HAZARDS

TYRES

OS MAPS

Step

Auckley (SE 647 013) Church Laneham (SK 810 766) 63.3 miles / 6-7 hours Flat of gently hilly farmland and woods Ruts and soft ground; farm traffic; other users; some nasty road junctions Landranger 111 (Sheffield and Doncaster) Landranger 120 (Mansfield and Worksop) Landranger 121 (Lincoln and Newark)

SE 647 013

Start at the Eagle and Child on the B1396 in Auckley. Don’t treat it like a public car park, especially if there’s a group of you. Zero your trip with the pub to your right and follow the main road east into Auckley

The road doesn’t seem to have a name, but it’s the ﬁrst on your left after setting off

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Step

It’s still semi-surfaced for a while, but this is the point where the sealed road turns into more of a track

Step

It becomes more enclosed between the trees, but it’s still a good, wide, well surfaced track

1.5

0.1 Step

DAMAGE

0.6

0.0 Step

WEATHER LOW BOX SOFT-ROADERS SCRATCHING DRIVING

Mud-terrains recommended, and a decent sidewall height Avoid when ground is very wet Essential in places Unsuitable in rutted areas Moderate risk in a few areas Discipline required to choose your line with care in places Shouldn’t happen if you’re sensible

This is shortly after Step 2

COMMON LANE

Step

Follow the main track hard right

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Step

Caution – this is a fast, busy main road

Step

2.1

9.55

Step

Haxey W’woodside Wroot B1396

3.4 Step

9.85 Step

5.6

Misson

Step

9.1

0.55

10 11 9.4

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ZERO TRIP

11.0

Step

Caution over the quarry road – it’s blind on the right and while you’d like to think the drivers operating there will know they’re crossing a right of way, when they’re doing it in quarry plant you don’t want to take any risks…

SK 689 948

Where the road swings hard right and becomes West Street, turn left on to Slaynes Lane

Bawtry A614

Step

16 1.35

Newark (A1) Retford A638 Rotherham (A631) Gainsboro’’ (A631)

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Step

This is at the end of the high street in Bawtry

1.55 Step

18 4.8 Step

Gainsboro’ A631 Everton

SK 696 908

Turn right, then immediately right again to double back on yourself. Straight after that, the track is on your left. The way to spot it is to look out for Manor House Nurseries as you approach the junction – your track is immediately beyond their main entrance as you look at it while still on the main road This track gets overgrown by summer; it’s mainly soft stuff, but you might cop some scratches from it

20 5.45

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Step

Watch out for ruts on the way down here

5.8

5.1 Step

Step 18: Turn right off the main road then immediately right again, then the track is on your left

Another potentially scratchy one

Step

22 6.15

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Step

6.8

0.5

23 Step

28 29 1.05

Step

30 GREAT NORTH ROAD

Step

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1.3

3.35

SK 649 856

Step

26 Step

It’s very hard to spot the turning as you approach – it’s just a gap in the hedge a little way after the farm buildings on the right. Slow early and watch for traﬃc behind you not knowing what you’re up to (this is a very fast road)

Step

ZERO TRIP

7.75

2.8

SK 646 858

Blyth

ZERO TRIP

1.9 Step

Extreme caution – the dual carriageway you’re emerging on to is no less than the A1. If you’re in convoy, split up for this section

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Step

SK 645 835

Turn left for Barnby Moor then immediately right on the track. Beware of traﬃc two feet from your back bumper with no idea of what it is you’re doing

Step

2.9

6.15

Step

3.6

6.55

34 Step

40 There’s a forbidding looking metal gate at the start of this lane. It certainly shouldn’t be locked, though

4.45 Step

Step

Agricultural tyre marks make it look as if the track to the left is bigger, but yours is straight on. A little way after this, ignore also the horse gallop off to the left – once again, carry straight on

Step

42 2.4

Step

5.7

3.5

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Carry on over the main road and on to Sutton Lane

0.7

5.25

Step

ZERO TRIP

43 SK 673 807

The turning is opposite the road on the right for Barnby Moor

Step

Turn right as the road bends in front of the Gate Inn

TOWN STREET

SK 691 851

Once you’re on the track, keep following it straight ahead past the Wildlife Park on your left and through the estate buildings

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A TRUE ALL TERRAIN PERFORMANCE TYRE

WILDPEAK | AT-AT3WA

The WILDPEAK A/T AT3WA, is engineered for any adventure, at any time and in any weather. The AT3WA combines durable off-road ability and rugged terrain driving without compromises on the road. It represents a true ALL TERRAIN performance tyre.

Further information call: 0870 112 9401 - www.falkentyre.com

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24/05/2023 12:27 12:27 01/06/2023

PUBLISHED 18 Nov 2022

Whatever your taste in Land Rovers, there’s one annual publication you can’t afford to miss. The Land Rover Yearbook is an eclectic blend of classics, modified motors, new Landies, product reviews, travelogues and more. This year’s Yearbook includes a range of 90s and 110s that have been brought back to life with a twist. And a 107” Station Wagon, too, restored and modified into a Series I like no other. If you prefer your classics to be more, well, classic, you’ll find an 88” Series IIA rebuilt with a devotion to originality that borders on the fanatical. And how about one of the very earliest Freelanders? Not everyone’s idea of a classic, but everything about Land Rover’s history since then says it’s one of the most significant vehicles the company has ever made. The Discovery, for example, was a truck in the pre-Freelander era. Now it’s a premium SUV. We’ve tested the current model in entry-level D250 form in a bid to find out whether you really need to stretch all the way to a top-spec engine. And we’ve driven the basic Defender 90, too – steel wheels and all. Not just on any test drive, either, but a mighty green lane trip on some of the best trails in the country.

That’s one kind of travel story. Getting up close to Africa’s wildlife is definitely another, and so too is the Dakar Classic. Loads of historhistor ic Range Rovers and Series trucks were involved in this marathon desert rally – yet not one of them had a British driver. So be warned spend a day or two poring over the 2023 Land Rover Yearbook and you might come away on a mission to put that right!

–

£8.99 in whsmith

or order online at

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Step

5.2

1.4

45 Step

50 ZERO TRIP

47 0.5

51 1.8

6.45 Step

Step

SK 726 848

The right of way ahead is subject to a winter TRO and can only be driven between May and September

SCOTTER LANE ROAD

Step

52 2.0

Step

48 0.6 Step

This track gets fairly rutted for a spell

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Step

SK 729 845

Step

2.05

4.25

Step

2.2

1.35

54 Step

Another one with a seasonal TRO

Step

59 1.6

Step

3.85

7.2

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ZERO TRIP

2.65

Extreme caution as you emerge – this is a fast, busy road

60 Cottam

212

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Step

SK 812 816

Caution – the lane gets quite rutted further on and is likely to be overgrown. This is another one with a seasonal TRO meaning it’s only usable from May to September

Step

7.5

8.6

Step

7.95

9.1

Step

8.15

9.75

62 63

65 66

Another seasonal TRO. This is the softest lane in the route; the ground holds water and the surface can cut up meaning good traction and ground clearance are necessary Don’t do it without some means of recovery, and scout your line ﬁrst to avoid damaging the ground

Caution – you cross a deep culvert after the track swings hard right. The ruts ﬁnally peter out shortly after this

Step 65: When you reach the soft part of the lane, get out and plan your line before driving it. It’s worse that this makes it look – however there’s no need to batter your way through with your engine screaming and wheels spinning, far less to get the winch out

4x4 13pp July 23 Roadbook.indd 75

NOVEMBER 2020 | 59

06/06/2023 17:12

Step

ZERO TRIP

SK 806 807

0.2 Step

SK 790 795

1.95

10.05 Step

Step

72 2.35

The main power station has been decomissioned now, as has the railway that used to serve it. A shame, because back in the day we remember watching coal trains thundering past here at a good 10mph

0.35 Step

70 0.85 Step 69: Cottam Power Station is currently in the process of being demolished, having been shut down as the country moves away from coal and towards cleaner sources of energy. The work will take some years yet, though, so it will continue to be a brooding presence on the horizon around here for a while yet. These lanes could provide a pretty impressive vantage point if you can plan to be on them when the cooling towers are dropped, though…

76 | JULY 2023

13pp July 23 Roadbook.indd 76

4x4 06/06/2023 17:12

Step

Another seasonal TRO. Watch out for holes in the surface near the bridge further up the lane

Step

2.9

4.7

Step

3.4

5.7

Step

3.5

5.8

SK 787 810

4.25 Step

77 78 4.55 4x4 13pp July 23 Roadbook.indd 77

2 112

Rampton Hospital Newark

1 19

Step

82 6.25

Yet another seasonal TRO

4.4 Step

Cottam Rampton

75 Step

TRESWELL ROAD

Step

83 6.5

Caution – the lane emerges into a residential area

Step

Rampton 1

SK 799 785

Turn left for Treswell and Cottam then immediately right in front of the church

7.5 JULY 2023 | 77

06/06/2023 17:12

Step 89: There’s a blind crest immediately before the T-junction, which presents you with two hazards. One is that there could be someone walking up towards you on the other side, or kids playing (you’re near a camping site here); the second is that if you don’t turn in time on the other side, you’ll be headed straight for a drainage ditch

Step

7.8

9.8

Step

8.45

9.9

Step

9.1

10.2

89 90

86 87 Step

88 9.4 78 | JULY 2023

13pp July 23 Roadbook.indd 78

Caution over the blind crest – you’re near a campsite here and there might be kids on the loose, so get out and check what’s on the other side before driving it

91 SK 815 772

Step

Caution – it’s a tight turn over your shoulder

Arrive at the Ferryboat Inn in Church Laneham for the end of the route

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