Overlander 4x4 March 2024 by Assignment Media Ltd

LATEST: OFF-ROAD PORSCHE 911 | DRIVEN: JEEP WRANGLER RUBICON AND VW ID.4 GTX | SPORT: DAKAR RALLY

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Exploring Napoleon’s legacy amid the Alpine peaks

March 2024 £5.99

PANDA 4X4 AT 40 The life and times of Fiat’s giant-killer

Cover READY TO PDF.indd 1

CAMPING IT UP From old Disco to overland classic

STERRATO

Sex, spiders and an off-road Lamborghini

02/02/2024 13:58

SUBARU OUTBACK. OVERLANDER 4X4 MAGAZINE’S BEST CROSSOVER OF THE YEAR.

"The Subaru Outback does everything right as an everyday family vehicle – and it can tackle terrain that would give most other brands a nosebleed."

NOW AVAILABLE WITH £1,500 DEPOSIT CONTRIBUTION AND 5.9% APR REP*

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Alan Kidd, Editor of Overlander 4x4 Magazine

Award-winning features. Fitted as standard. • 2.5i Boxer Engine Lineartronic • Permanent Symmetrical All-Wheel Drive • EyeSight Safety Package • 2,000kg Towing Capacity (braked)

To find out more visit subaru.co.uk or contact your local Subaru dealer.

• 213mm Ground Clearance • 11.6" Tablet-like Infotainment System • Reversing Camera

SUBARU OUTBACK fuel economy and CO2 results (WLTP): Combined 33.0mpg, CO2 emissions 193g/km. MPG figures are official EU test figures for comparative purposes & may not reflect real driving results. Fuel consumption achieved in real life conditions & CO2 produced depends on a number of factors including accessories fitted (post-registration), variations in weather, driving styles & vehicle load. Offers available until 31.03.2024. Stock subject to availability. Subaru reserves the right to amend or withdraw offers at any time without prior notice. Private customers only, not available in conjunction with any other offers. Excludes Personal Contract Hire and Business Contract Hire. Available at participating dealers only. *£1,500 Subaru Deposit Contribution on a 2.5i Outback Limited, Field or Touring. †Credit is subject to status. Must be 18+. This credit offer is only available through Subaru Finance provided by International Motors Finance Limited, St William House, Tresillian Terrace, Cardiff, CF10 5BH.

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24/01/2024 09:57

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TERRAFIRMA2”LIFT 2”LIFTAIR AIRTO TOCOIL COIL TERRAFIRMA CONVERSIONKIT KITD3 D3&&D4 D4 CONVERSION TF266 TF266 Fitting an air to coil conversion kit to a Discovery 3 or 4 reduces the likelihood of expensive air suspension repairs and eliminates the potential for suspension failure in remote operating conditions. Terrafirma’s lifted air to coil conversion kit increases ride height by 50mm (2inches) with good load carrying characteristics and excellent ride quality. The sophisticated EAS override module retains all the original functions such as Terrain Response, Headlight Levelling and Information Screen functions. TF266 suits both Discovery 3 and Discovery 4

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Editor

Alan Kidd

Design

Ian Denby-Jones

Contributors

Oli Barrington, Graham Scott, Gary Martin, Olly Sack, Gary Noskill, Dan Fenn, Paul Looe, Tom Alderney

Photographers

Steve Taylor, Richard Hair, Harry Hamm, Vic Peel

bout 100 years ago, when I was new to off-roading, I was sent on an edition of Camp Jeep in the north of France. I was in a lifted, mud-tyred Wrangler and we had fun taking on all sorts of tough trails, feeling like no-one else could touch us. So we got to the top of this slick, muddy, rutted hill, feeling ever more like driving gods. And what should we ﬁnd but an old farmer tending his ﬁelds from out the back of an equally old Renault 4. Everyone has a story like that. I’d think overland travellers in particular, actually. Fact is, around the world the majority of real-world off-roading is done by everyday cars. That’s what Fiat realised when it hit on the idea of turning the Panda into a 4x4. It was already proving popular with hill farmers and so on because

it was cheap, light and versatile; give it all-wheel drve too and you can add unstoppable to the list. Now it’s 40 years later and the Panda 4x4 is still a thing. Something you notice when you go to places where you need a car that can do it off-road is that they’re not full of big SUVs – people just want an everyday motor, only one that won’t get stuck. Our main travel story this month is about a couple of guys exploring the Alps in northern Italy aboard their modified Hiluxes. It’s a very cool adventure with some pretty gnarly off-roading in it, and all just a day’s drive from England. I finished reading it and came away with every intention of going there myself… and I have no dubt that when I do, the first thing I’m going to find on top of one of the mountains will be a Fiat Panda. Alan Kidd, Editor

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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

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54 28

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Contents MAR 2024 IN PROGRESS_converted.indd 2

02/02/2024 22:13

LATEST: OFF-ROAD PORSCHE 911 | DRIVEN: JEEP WRANGLER RUBICON AND VW ID.4 GTX | SPORT: DAKAR RALLY

HEAVEN UP HERE

75% OFF

Exploring Napoleon’s legacy amid the Alpine peaks

March 2024 £5.99

PANDA 4X4 AT 40 The life and times of Fiat’s giant-killer

Cover READY TO PDF.indd 1

CAMPING IT UP From old Disco to overland classic

STERRATO

Sex, spiders and an off-road Lamborghini

Six issues for the price of 12 sounds like half-price – but when you subscribe to Overlander 4x4 for a year, you actually end up getting 75% off the price on the cover

02/02/2024 13:58

CONTENTS MARCH 2024 4x4 Scene 4

News

Rights of Way

Subaru’s XV replacement arrives, KGM unveils a new model structure, Nissan build the most radical X-Trail ever and Volkswagen gets what it asked for Storm damage in Somerset, and peace breaks out in the long-running saga of Little Moelfre

10 Products

Isuzu’s partnership with ARB enters its first full year, and Land Rover Defenders get one of the most iconic wheels of all time

12 Motorsport

The Dakar Rally enters a new era as Audi’s electric RS Q e-tron triumphs in the Saudi desert

Every Month 62 Subscribe

Get Overlander 4x4 delivered for a fraction of the cover price

64 Next Month

Exploring Cambodia in a convoy of Defenders and Finland on electric power alone

Driven 18 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon 3-door

With a mid-life facelift on the way, Jeep’s halo model continues to impress as much as ever

20 Volkswagen ID.4 GTX

Smooth crossover proves to be a credible electric GTI – and doesn’t flinch at the sight of a green lane

24 Nissan Qashqai e-Force

Electric version of the popular crossover makes the case for the Qashqai but not necessarily for itself

Vehicles 28 40 Years of the Panda 4x4

Fiat’s giant-killer has been whizzing around in the mountains of Italy and beyond for four decades

44 Classic Camper

Restoring an early Land Rover Discovery back to near-showroom is one thing. Deciding to turn it into an overland camper is another

Travel 36 Napoleon’s Alps

A brace of Hiluxes set out to explore the mountain trails serving the fortresses that defended the Napoleonic empire on the summit of Europe

54 Sexy Beasts…

A tale of poisonous spiders, frenzied sex and the off-road Lambo that’s at home in the middle of it all March 2024 I Overlander 4x4

Contents MAR 2024 IN PROGRESS_converted.indd 3

02/02/2024 22:13

NEWS SCENE

RADICAL X-TRAIL HITS THE SLOPES

he Nissan X-Trail won our 4x4 of the Year award when it was launched, thanks in no small part to its remarkable off-road ability. But the standard model is nothing compared to the X-Trail Mountain Rescue – a one-off designed to highlight the tractability of the electric layout that allows the e-4ORCE drivetrain to react almost instantaneously to changing levels of grip. It is of course very apparent indeed that the headline modification to the

X-Trail Mountain Rescue is the addition of snow tracks instead of wheels. However equally important is the removal of its rear seats to let it carry a stretcher, plus medical equipment and personnel. In addition to all this, an evacuation stretcher and snow shovels are carried on a bespoke roof rack and the front bumper has been strengthened to mount an electric winch. The extra width of the tracks is covered by extended wing flares, while there are heavy-duty towing hooks

front and rear and running boards for access to the cabin – very necessary for some as the vehicle rides 230mm higher than standard. Nissan built the vehicle as part of a campaign it’s supporting to prevent accidents by encouraging responsible skiing i Europe’s major resorts. It will be displayed in a glass box in one of them, Cervinia in Italy, and feature in promotional material encouraging people to slow down on the slopes.

New T-Cross is a fowl colour Volkswagen’s updated T-Cross is now on sale here in the UK, with revised front and rear styling as well as enhanced equipment and new technology. The latter includes optional Matrix LED headlamps and free-standing touchscreens measuring from 203 to 234mm. The vehicle’s dashboard is now trimmed in softupholstered materials for a greater

feeling of quality, and a range of advanced safety features is introduced. Most importantly, the T-Cross is now available in a new bright yellow paint colour. Volkswagen ran an online poll to find a name for this, the result being that it’s called Rubber Ducky. Oh yes it is. At least it’s better than Yellow McYellowyface. The revised T-Cross starts at £23,965. and climbs to £31,660.

www.overlander4x4.co.uk

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02/02/2024 13:59

It’s a Lambo… and then some

Fear-free purchasing on Dacia Duster

If you’re thinking about buying a Lamborghini Urus but you’re on the fence because it’s just not powerful enough, here’s the good news. ABT Sportsline has unveiled the Urus Scatenato, a version of the vehicle whose turbochargers and intercooler have been upgraded to let its 4.0-litre V8 engine produce 810bhp. Limited to 99 units, the vehicle also gains styling upgrades inside and out through the extensive use of visible carbon – as well as extra-aggressive front and rear spoilers, 4” quad exhaust tailpipes and 23” forged alloy wheels. ABT’s British importer Richter Automotive quotes the price for the vehicle as starting from £450,000.

With an all-new Duster on the way, Dacia has introduced Flex – a leasing plan which allows you to end your contract after just six months without incurring a financial penalty. Available exclusively on all versions of the current Duster, this is designed to let you get one on your drive today then swap into the new model when it’s launched later this year.

More details on new top-spec Enyaq Kalmar launches off-road 911 conversion Fancy a Porsche 911 with the same ground clearance as a Cayenne? That’s what Kalmar Automotive is now offering, thanks to a new conversion the company has launched for the water-cooled 996 iteration of the legendary sports car. Called the RS-6, the vehicle costs less than Kalmar’s aircooled 911-based RS. It’s available with power options ranging from 300 to 500bhp and features bespoke suspension on roll centre adjusting subframes with inverted adjustable front shocks, custom springs, engineered top mounts, bushes and a strut brace, all of which goes together to achieve ground clearance of 210mm. The engine’s output goes through upgraded driveshafts to lightweight 6x16” alloys mounted with wither all-terrain or spiked Michelin winter tyres. Options include adaptive and hydraulic lift shocks and a roof-mounted survival kit comprising an LED bar and mounts for jerry cans and a spare wheel. In addition, says Kalmar, ‘all aspects can be tailored to specific tastes, as can the exterior aesthetic, with a bespoke livery designed in collaboration with the customer available, ensuring that each RS-6 is unique.’ The conversion is priced from €45,000 plus the base vehicle. So that’s anything from about £50,000 to £160,000 plus VAT. Less than a new Range Rover then, and capable of doing more off-roading than most of those will ever see.

We brought you news of the revised Skoda Enyaq a couple of issues ago, and now the company has put flesh on the bones with details of its new rangetopped – the Enyaq Laurin and Klement. Available in SUV and Coupé body styles, this adds a luxury option to the range and is priced from £51,340 and £53,240 OTR respectively. Features include unique exterior styling with full Matrix LED headlights and 20” alloys as standard, the latter upgradeable to 21”. Inside, there’s premium sound system and head-up display as well as a choice of black or beige leather, while the seats are heated and cooled as well as offering a massage function. The order books are open now, with first deliveries later in the year.

March 2024 I Overlander 4x4

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New grade structure for KGM models KGM Motors has introduced a range of new and revised specifications for its UK line-up. The company until recently known as SsangYong, which is aiming to elevate its products into a more premium sphere, is to revise the spec names across SUV range to follow a uniform format. The spec names will come from the list K20, K30, K40 and K50, with just two

options available on each model. The exception is the Musso double-cab, which will retain the existing EX, Rebel, Saracen and Saracen+ line-up. KGM’s range, which also currently includes the Tivoli, Korando and Rexton SUVs (the latter a former 4x4 of the Year winner), is soon to expand with the addition of the Torres, a new-generation

model available in petrol-engined and pure electric form. Due in the UK by the end of March, this will be followed in the second half of the year by another mid-sized electric SUV developed in conjunction with Chinese EV giant BYD – while further ahead, the company is working on a large SUV and a pick-up truck, again exclusively battery-powered.

Crosstrek arrives to replace award-winning XV Subaru’s new Crosstrek, the replacement for the award-winning XV, is now available in the UK. With 220mm of ground clearance, permanent all-wheel drive and Subaru’s X-Mode traction management system, this comes in Limited and Touring trim priced at £34,290 and £36,290 on the road respectively. While it looks remarkably similar to the vehicle it replaces, the Crosstrek has a 10% stiffer chassis and promises matching improvements in ride and handling – neither of them areas in which the XV was exactly a slouch. The drivetrain has been updated, too, to deliver greater agility and control through faster response times, both on and off-road, and Touring models get a dual-function version of X-Mode for ‘increased capability in a wider range of conditions.’ Powered by the familiar 2.0-litre hybrid engine, which produces 136bhp and 134lbf.ft, the Crosstrek comes with a CVT box as standard. Possibly a clincher for the Touring is that it also offers a manual mode, with steering wheel paddles allowing the driver to control the transmission via eight pre-set ratios.

Tuff-Trek hosts overland party Roof tent specialist Tuff-Trek is hosting its fourth Overland Island camping event at the South of England Showground, near Ardingly in West Sussex, on the weekend of 26-28 April. This promises to be family and dog-friendly, with on-site entertainment and live music as well as a range of food vendors for those who don’t fancy cooking. There are showers and toilets on site, too, should the facilities in your overland vehicle not be all you want or need for one of the social events of the overlanding year. ‘All are welcome,’ says Tuff-Trek. ‘Old friends and new, come and meet like minded people for on and off-topic discussions.’ Weekend tickets are priced at £65, with a £45 early bird offer still available at the time of writing.

www.overlander4x4.co.uk

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Defender Carpet Kits Once installed, these easy to fit, hard wearing carpet kits will transform your Defender’s interior. The black 5mm woven pile carpet is manufactured with a hardback which ensures it holds its shape for years to come. All holes are precut for a precision fit. No glue is required and with only strips of double-sided tape (supplied where applicable), fitment is quick and easy with no mess. The carpet also has the added advantage of improving soundproofing within the cabin. When applicable, floor mats have a reinforced edged for a smart, hard wearing finish. DA4910 Defender - up to & including 200Tdi LT77 gearbox - Excludes V8 Right hand drive Front Kit - Bulkhead panel, gear box tunnel, floor mats, under dashboard panels, kick plate panels & seat box panels DA4911 Defender - 300Tdi & Td5 R380 gearbox - Excludes V8 Right hand drive Front Kit - Bulkhead panel, gear box tunnel, floor mats, under dashboard panels, kick plate panels & seat box panels DA4912 NEW Defender - Puma 2.4 - Right hand drive Front Kit - Bulkhead panel, gear box tunnel, floor mats, under dashboard panels, kick plate panels & seat box panels DA4921 NEW Defender - Puma 2.2 - Right hand drive Front Kit - Bulkhead panel, gear box tunnel, floor mats, under dashboard panels, kick plate panels & seat box panels DA4916 Defender 110 & 130 - Commercial not Station Wagon - cut-away arches For vehicles with door retainers 2nd Row Kit - Floor carpet & forward-facing rear pieces

DA4920 NEW Defender 110 & 130 - Station Wagon For vehicles without door retainers 2nd Row Kit - Floor carpet & forward-facing rear pieces DA4913 NEW Defender 90 - without rear seats - square

DA4911

DA4913

DA4916

DA4917

arches

Rear Kit - Wheel arches, floor & filler cap cover DA4914 NEW

Defender 90 - Station Wagon with inwardfacing seats - square arches Rear Kit - Wheel arches & floor DA4915 NEW

Defender 90 - Station Wagon with forwardfacing seats - cut-away arches Rear Kit - Wheel arches & floor DA4917 Defender 110 - without rear seats - cut-away arches Rear Kit - Wheel arches & floor DA4918 COMING SOON Defender 110 - Station Wagon with inward-

DA4911

facing seats - square arches

Rear Kit - Wheel arches & floor DA4919 NEW Defender 110 - Station Wagon with forwardfacing seats - cut-away arches Rear Kit - Wheel arches & floor

Holes are pre-cut for a precision fit

Watch how easy the kits are to fit...

britpart.com Find your nearest stockist - britpart.com/stockist Part numbers used for identification purposes only and do not imply or indicate the identity of a manufacturer. Products available from a Britpart stockist. E&OE.

Overlander4x4_2024_03March_Britpart_FP.indd 1

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Rights of Way Peace breaks out in Little Moelfre Little Moelfre is a long byway, at around 4.5 miles, making it particularly precious. However a series of conflicting records threatened to turn it into a cul-de-sac. Looking at the map, the byway appeared to stop short of its junction with the C-class (yellow) road at Moelfre City. However the Definitive Map Statement said it commenced at the C road – and a List of Streets (LOS) map from 1952 showed it doing exactly that. In addition, but the Crown Estate and a previous landowner had made written depositions stating that it was a public road. The problem stemmed from around 1955, when the road was diverted – meaning it bypassed the point previously recorded as the end of the byway (point B on the 1952 LOS map shown here). For whatever reason, even though it was tarred and shown on updated maps, the new route was never adopted and did not appear on either the Definitive Map and Statement (DMS) or Highways mapping. In April 2016, the new landowner put a fence across the route – provoking a

storm of complaints. They threatened to sue Powys County Council if the new route was added to the List of Streets. What followed was a series of legal wranglings which finally yielded some sort of common sense last year when the landowner made a Without Prejudice offer to allow users to install a gate. Since then, ‘Private Keep Out’ signs have been replaced by new ones reading ‘Enter At Own Risk.’ Then on 28 October, members of the Green Lane Association took up the landowner’s offer and installed a gate, meaning the byway can once again be used as the through route it surely ought to be. This might not have been a victory, but a truce allowing both sides to get on with their lives is vastly preferable to the angst-ridden stalemate that went before. Naturally, the fragile situation means users need to be at their diplomatic best on Little Moelfre, not least because the ramp up to the gate still needs to be stabilised. As a result, GLASS asks all 4x4 users not to drive the route until spring.

The 1952 LOS map shows a public road leading to the start of the byway (point B, with the byway highlighted). The road was diverted a few years later – its new route is shown on the current OS map. The problem stemmed from the section leading from the new road to the byway, which was not disputed at the time but has been claimed as private by a subsequent landowner

Storm damage wipes out Pipehouse Lane repairs Pipehouse Lane, a byway south of Bath which was repaired as recently as January 2022, needed another round of work at the start of this year after being badly damaged during the repeated storms that battered the country during the autumn. At the time of writing, the lane was closed by a TRO to allow work to be done. Bath and North East Somerset

Council only expected this to take a week, however, so the restriction should have been relaxed by the time you read this. Elsewhere in Somerset, GLASS rep Charlie Moore has been busy surveying lanes for required clearance work. Some in the area have had this done in the relatively recent past (eg Chillyhill Lane near Chew Magna and Nanny Hurn’s Lane

near Bishop Sutton), while others (such as Featherbed Lane, also near Bishop Sutton) have been neglected long-term, and Charlie is hoping to get a group of volunteers together to improve the situation. ‘My aim is to have a network of lanes that are non-scratchy and so suitable for all,’ he says, and what a laudable aim it is.

Prior to 2022’s repairs, Pipehouse Lane was in a serious mess thanks to water erosion. The pictures show it as it was before and after the work was done – and then finally how it was left by a succession of storms during the autumn. By the time you read this, it should be open again after a new scheme of work to make it good 8

www.overlander4x4.co.uk

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www.osram.co.uk/am

Light is the perfect upgrade OSRAM LEDriving® HL EASY with plug & play system: no adapters and caps needed With its socket-based solution, the OSRAM LEDriving HL EASY® retrofits replace conventional halogen lamps and allow an easy installation for cars with the respective halogen bulb types (H1, H3, H7/H18, H4/H19 and H15). The product offers: - easy plug & play installation with optimized compatibility – no need for adapters and caps! - an optimized high-speed fan ensuring active cooling - higher performance and high-level light output possible thanks to maximized heat dissipation - a stylish look as well as superior brightness With the LEDriving® HL EASY, it has never been easier to upgrade conventional high and low beam lamps to LED! Insist on OSRAM – the number 1 in automotive lighting Order now or find your local store at www.caarparts.co.uk

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OSRAM Ref. 64176DWESY-HCB

23/01/2024 12:01

PRODUCTS

ARB’s accessories partnership with Isuzu enters ﬁrst full year The latest fruit of Isuzu’s tie-up with ARB, which began in the middle of 2023, is a range of outdoor adventure accessories including roof tents, kitchen installations and off-road support gear. Some of this is speciﬁcally tailored to the D-Max, allowing

owners to prep their vehicles for overland use from within Isuzu’s dealer network. During 2023, the Ascent gull-wing hardtop was ARB’s highest seller through its collaboration with Isuzu. Now an oﬃcial D-Max accessory, this integrates with the

tents in the range – including the Esperance, Flinders and Simpson III roof tents, the latter including a ladder and annexe, and the ground-level Swag Skydome. On the culinary side, there’s the fully fitted Slide Kitchen with a gas hob, sink and additional drawers, and the famous Zero fridge-freezer. The Awning Room Deluxe, meanwhile, is a versatile extension to the vehicle’s living area which comes complete with a floor. ARB’s Base Rack remains a popular option for extending a vehicle’s load-carrying ability, and the company’s recovery points provide a rock-solid location for a shackle. On that subject, Isuzu also offer’s the ARB Recovery Kit Weekender, which includes a 4.75-tonne snatch strap, shackles and leather gloves, and Tred Pro Recovery Boards for waffling your way out of trouble. ‘Our partnership with ARB has exceeded expectations,’ says Isuzu’s accessories man Steve Page. ‘The accessories provided have proven to be of the highest quality, and Isuzu D-Max owners have embraced the versatility they bring to their outdoor adventures.’

You can’t beat a good screw… £240 | www.mudstuff.co.uk

Bush upgrade for Mk2 Cayenne ca £60 | www.powerﬂex.co.uk

New from Powerflex is a Front Lower Wishbone Front Bush for the secondgeneration Porsche Cayenne. Suitable for GTS and Turbo models from 2010 to 2017, this fits arms with a 45.8mm internal diameter and, says Powerflex, delivers a 40% increase in stiffness over the OE rubber bush. Made from 95A durometer polyurethane and including a knurled inner bore for grease retention, the bush promises improved performance, longevity, steering response, braking stability and tyre life – as well as a lifetime warranty. Powerflex already had a Front Lower Wishbone Rear Bush in its range for the same vehicle, so now you can do both at the same time.

As most of us ﬁnd out to our cost at some point in our lives, too much screwing can leave you damaged and fragile. We’re talking about the vent panel on a Land Rover Defender, of course. ‘Over the years,’ says Mud-UK, ‘this fragile panel traditionally gets a million things screwed into it. So it’s always high on the shopping list for any restoration project.’ The grey plastic panel, which sits horizontally in the back of the dashboard on the classic Defender, is no longer available to buy from Land Rover. Good old Land Rover. So instead, Mud-UK have created their own copy of the original part. ‘We’ve accurately replicated the colour and texture of the original panel,’ the company says, ‘but manufactured it in a thicker grade material for greater durability.’

No-hassle airing down from ARB

ca £60 | www.britpart.com

Want to air down quick? ARB to the rescue. The Aussie off-road specialist’s E-Z Deﬂator allows you to remove your tyre’s valve core to lose pressure rapidly while also providing an accurate reading. It has a fully geared, solid brass precision movement and protective rubber gauge guard, and will continue to read accurately irrespective of temperature, humidity and altitude.

www.overlander4x4.co.uk

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SPEEDLINER PRO SPRAYLINER’ USES THE TRIED AND TESTED SPEEDLINER EURO HS® POLYMER SPRAYLINER THAT HAS A 20 YEAR TRACK RECORD. SPEEDLINER PRO is a 2K spray liner designed for the rear load bed of pickup trucks, land rovers, panel vans, trailers, small boats and many other small to medium size applications. The polyurethane/polyurea hybrid product dries quickly and provides tough, durable, anti-corrosion, wear and tear protection combined with excellent UV properties. SPEEDLINER PRO EASY SPRAYLINER is packaged and supplied in pre-coloured Black or Grey plus the ‘Self Colour’ version is also available. AFTER SIMPLE MIXING THE PRODUCT IS READY TO APPLY BY SPRAY, BRUSH OR ROLL.

Genuine Minilites for Land Rover Defender ca £270 + VAT | www.britpart.com

The Minilite wheel is a bit of a motoring icon. And, however much the word might make you grind your teeth when used by JLR executives, so too is the Land Rover Defender. Now you can double up on your icons and put both together. That’s because Minilites are now available through the Britpart network to suit the Defender (including pre-Defender) from 1987-2016 – as well as the Series III, Discovery 1 and Range Rover Classic. The wheels are low-pressure die cast in high-grade aluminium alloy, CNC machined, pressure tested and powder coated. These are genuine Minilites, not a pattern copy, made to the same pattern as the legendary competition wheel on which the Austin Mini achieved global success in the 1960s and 70s. If there’s to be a bucket of cold water, it’s that the wheels are only available in 8x18”. You can get them in black, silver and anthracite finishes, though, to complement the finish on your Landy of choice.

RLG Tyres

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Motorsport

AUDI MAKES HISTORYAS RS Q E-TRON CARRIES SAINZ TO DAKAR VICTORY

arlos Sainz made history in the 2024 Dakar Rally – by becoming the first driver to take overall victory in an electric vehicle. The Spanish veteran has now won the legendary event four times for four different manuacturers, having triumphed with Volkswagen in 2010, Peugeot in 2018 and

Pic: A.S.O./Vandrei Stephani

Mini in 2020 prior to taking the wheel of Audi’s revolutionary RS Q e-tron. Sainz was aided in his run to the title by team-mates Stéphane Peterhansel and Mattias Ekström, who were going well before dropping out of contention with technical issues on the sixth and seventh stages respectively. With victory out of

their reach, both crews shifted their focus to helping their colleague, Peterhansel stopping for six minutes on Stage 9 to wait for Sainz to pass, so that he could run behind him as a support car. The value of this could never have been better illustrated than on Stage 10, when Sainz suffered not one but two punctures – a

Carlos Sainz had won three previous Dakars, each for a different manufacturer, before becoming part of Audi’s bid to win the event in its RS Q e-tron. The team claimed victory at the third time of asking, with Sainz the beneficiary after fellow Audi drivers Matthias Ekström and Stéphane Peterhansel had fallen out of contention and shifted their focus to helping his challenge for the title

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Pic: A.S.O./Charly Lopez

DAKAR CLASSIC The Dakar Classic, a regularity rally for pre-2000 vehicles running parallel to the main event, was introduced in 2021. The inaugural event was won by France’s Marc Douton in a Sunhill Buggy, but since then it’s been Toyota Land Cruiser HDJ80s all the way. Serge Mogno won it again for France in 2022, followed by Spain’s Juan Morero last year. On that occasion, the runner-up was another Spaniard, Carlos Santaolalla, also in an HDJ80 – and he was to go one better in 2024, winning

the event ahead of Italy’s Lorenzo Traglio. Traglio’s late challenge was held up by technical problems with his Nissan Pathfinder, as was that of Ondřej Klymčiw’s Škoda 130 in the first week. Klymčiw admitted that his car was on its last legs and would be retired after the event; either way, you need to be on your mechanical A-game to beat an 80-Series Land Cruiser for reliabilit, as Santaolalla’s victory proved.

Pic: A.S.O./Vandrei Stephani

misfortune that would have cost him any chance of the title had it not been for Ekström coming to his rescue and getting him back on his way within a few minutes. Sainz was at this point locked in a tussle with former Peugeot team-mate Sébastien Loeb, who lost twice as much time on the same stage thanks to two punctures of his own – compounded by a broken hydraulic jack. But as the event drew towards its conclusion after some 3000 miles of special stages over two weeks in the deserts of Saudi Arabia, the

Seth Quintero is the hottest young property in cross-country racing right now, and this year saw him move up from the side-by-side classes to a full works drive for Toyota Gazoo Racing. The 21 year old Californian has time on his side, but he’s unlikely to have been satisfied with a 42nd placed finish. Fellow Hilux driver Guillaume de Mévius, on the other hand, headed the Toyota charge, finishing second overall

Spaniard was able to start nursing a lead of around an hour and twenty minutes. Loeb won five stages and Sainz none at all – but after taking the lead from Toyota’s Yazeed Al-Rajhi midway through, it was the latter who led all the way. It wasn’t until the penultimate stage, however, that the outcome was finally settled. Going flat out in a bid to make up time, Loeb landed too heavily after a jump and broke a part in his Prodrive Hunter’s front axle. Team-mate Yungang Zi came to his rescue to at least keep

him in contention for a place on the podium, but the damage had been done and the French WRC legend was to finish third overall behind Sainz and Toyota’s Guillaume De Mévius. Toyota ended up claiming six of the top ten places, with Guerlain Chicherit’s Hilux in fourth followed by the Ford Raptor RS of Martin Prokop. The next four places were all taken by Hiluxes, with 2009 winner Giniel De Villiers among them, then the top ten was closed out by Mathieu Saradori in his Century CR6-T special.

Pic: A.S.O./E.Vargiolu/DPPI

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RZR Pro R, de Soultrait adopted the tactic of simply not letting his rival out of his sight, knowing that a close result would be enough. It worked – but with less than two and a half minutes between them there was precious little margin for error. In the Trucks class, the top ten featured six Dutch teams, one Italian, one Japanese and two from the Czech Republic. The latter were the ones that mattered, though, taking the top two places on the podium – with the win going to the Iveco PowerStar of Martin Macík. This was Czechia’s first success since Karel Loprais drove a Tatra to victory in 2001; to bring things full circle, his nephew Aleš Loprais was the man in second aboard a Praga V4S.

Will Audi’s triumph herald a new era of alternative technology in the Dakar? It seems inevitable that a shift has started – and by demonstrating that a vehicle with electric propulsion can defeat not only 5000 miles of specials and liaisons in the desert, but a global field of top-level competitors, Audi has paved a way which others will surely now follow. ‘With our revolutionary electrified drive, we have overcome one of the biggest challenges in motorsport after just three years,’ said Audi technical development boss Oliver Hoffmann. ‘We are thus continuing a long series of pioneering achievements that have always characterised Audi in four decades of motorsport.’

The last Czech driver to win the Trucks class was Karel Loprais, back in 2001. This year, his nephew Aleš Loprais finished second – however it was his compatriot Martin Macík, in an Iveco PowerStar, who put Czechia back on the top step for the first time in 23 years

Sébastien Loeb pushed hard throughout in his Prodrive Hunter and still had a genuine shout until the penultimate stage. A heavy

In the T3 Challenger class for sideby-sides, Cristina Gutiérrez took one of the narrowest victories in Dakar history. The final stage is traditionally a parade to the chequered flag, but the Spanish competitor paid no heed to that as she reeled in her fellow Taurus T3 Max driver, America’s Mitch Guthrie, to win by 36 minutes 46 seconds. Thus Gutiérrez became the first woman to win a Dakar title since Jutta Kleinschmidt’s triumph for Mitsubishi way back in 2001. There was an even narrower finish in the T4 class, also for SSVs, in which France’s Xavier de Soultrait went into the final stage with a lead of around three minutes over Jérôme de Sadeleer of Switzerland. In his new-generation Polaris

Pic: A.S.O./Charly Lopez

Pic: A.S.O./A.Vincent/DPPI

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Pic: A.S.O./C.Lopez

Pic: A.S.O./Charly Lopez

Pic: A.S.O./F.Le Floc’h/DPPI

landing broke a component in his front axle – a blow from which the multiple WRC champion couldn’t recover

Xavier de Soultrait went into the final stage with a slender lead over Jérôme de Sadeleer in the T4 class. Driving his Polaris RZR Pro R, the Frenchman held on to it simply by staying within sight of his competitor. Simple logic – and it proved effective March 2024 I Overlander 4x4

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25/04/2023 11:28:22

JEEP WRANGLER 2.0 RUBICON 3-DOOR

You get aboard the Wrangler and put your fun head on. It’s that kind of cabin, all chunky switchgear and bright panels. What you might not notice is how well laid out it all is

here’s a facelifted version of the Jeep Wrangler on the way in the next few months. It has a new take on the famous seven-slot grille, additional safety features, revised wheel designs and a more upmarket cabin with 12-way power-adjustable front seats and a 12.3” touch-screen running the company’s latest Uconnect 5 infotainment system, and the Dana rear axle on the Rubicon model gains strength by becoming fully-floating for the first time. Worth waiting for? Quite possibly, yes, given that pricing remains unchanged – and since that means a Wrangler will cost from £60,785 OTR in Sahara form and £62,785 for the Rubicon, you’re going to want everything you can get to ease the pain. It remains hard to believe that the previous model to this one started in the teens. Anyway, facelift incoming or not Jeep can sell every Wrangler they can get their hands on in the UK, as those prices illustrate. So between now and when those first deliveries hit these shores, you’re going to get the chance to buy one of the soon-to-

become-old-shape examples at a discount of precisely zero. That’s what we’ve got here. It’s a Rubicon, so it comes with heavy-duty axles, locking diffs, sway bar disconnect and so on, and it’s a 3-door. Bit of a rarity, that – at the time of writing, on Jeep’s UK website there’s no sign of such a thing being available to buy from new. Like all Wranglers over here, it’s powered by a 2.0-litre turbocharged petrol engine that sends 272bhp and 295lbf.ft through an 8-speed auto box. This is bolted to a mechanically operated transfer case with a choice of high and low ranges for off-roading and, for the road, two and four-wheel drive. The latter uses an open centre diff, but we stuck with the former because it’s better on fuel (in theory) and, more to the point, because it lets you do lurid great smoky burnouts. That’ll be a bunch of power combined with a set of mud-terrains, then… As this suggests, the Wrangler is a vehicle you get aboard and put your fun head on. Or your idiot head, if that sounds more accurate. It’s probably not a binary

choice, but enough of one without too much of the other is a good plan. The things that are about to be updated on the Wrangler are, by and large, already just ﬁne. It looks cool and with its new grille and wheels it’ll still look cool, just different. We’re not huge fans of electrically adjusting seats, because we prefer not to spend ten seconds standing outside in the rain while they slowly trundle far enough back for a hefty editor-size unit to be able to ﬁt in behind the wheel, and while a man can always do with more inches we didn’t see anything about the media screen to make us feel like wiener boy.

Good stuff

Still, more safety kit is always a good thing, especially when they include actual improvements to the vehicle’s structure that improve its resistance to side impacts. The list will grow to include Drowsy Driver Alert, Lane Departure Warning and Traﬃc Sign Information, too – hard to believe a sixtygrand vehicle didn’t already have these – as well as pre-tensioners and load limiters for

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the second-row seatbelts. All good stuff, though the biggest safety feature a vehicle will ever have is a fantastic view of the road – and the Wrangler has one of the very best. You enjoy the sky-high driving position of a true, traditional off-road vehicle and you can see things before they even happen. Both on and off-road, it makes the Wrangler so, so relaxing to drive. Obviously it doesn’t have the refinement of most other expensive cars that are relaxing to drive. It’s noisy on the motorway and its big tyres and beam axles mean it’s bumpy on every kind of road. Wonderfully so, if you get what off-roaders are about, and if you don’t get what off-roaders are about why are you reading this? In this area, there’s nothing much we can say about the Rubicon that we haven’t said before. It’s an expertly honed off-roading device – tractable, flexible, robust and incredibly manoeuvrable. As we always point out, the Wrangler is also the world’s most instantly modifiable vehicle, with a colossal aftermarket to prove the point – and, unlike a certain other 4x4 manufacturer

we could name, Jeep embraces this and indeed actively encourages it. There’s a school of thought that says if you really want to go for it, it’s better to start with a more basic model and add your own axles, lockers, transfer gears and so on, but for 99% of owners the Rubicon will deliver everything you’ll ever need with a load of ability to spare. In particular, its steering is perfectly set up for manoeuvrability over rough ground, and its suspension backs this up by keeping all four wheels on the floor in situations that would have almost any other vehicle lifting off. To be honest, it’s quite hard to find situations in which the lockers are necessary. There was a time when the payoff was feather-light steering on the road that had so much power assistance you could barely feel any turn-in at all. But modern Wranglers are much better in this respect. It’s still not like driving a sports coupe or GTi, but you don’t find yourself in constant fear of corners. You need to treat it with circumspection, particularly when it’s in twowheel drive, but even in the wet it only starts

to become a handful if you’re basically looking for trouble. Which might possible refer us back to that comment about lurid burnouts. Every T-junction is an opportunity to light up a rear wheel, and you have to have a very sensible head indeed on your shoulders not to indulge at least now and then. So sensible, indeed, that you’ve gone and spent your sixty large on a Volvo SUV instead. What have you missed out on in the process? Jeep describes the Wrangler as an SUV too, but in the British language it’s not one. It’s an off-roader, not an SUV – in fact, to a lot of people it’s the off-roader. It’s about to become a little more modern, but the things that make it what it is are timeless. So if you don’t want to wait for the revised model to come along later in the year, don’t be scared. Go for any Wrangler and you’ll get a 4x4 whose authenticity is off the scale. You’ll get a cool wagon and an off-roader with more built-in know-how than anything else there is. In fact, just about the only thing you can be sure you won’t get is a discount.

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VOLKSWAGEN ID.4 GTX 4MOTION

olkswagen’s ID range of electric crossovers have become a common sight on the road. Not so much off it – though in GTX form, the medium-sized ID.4 does come with all-wheel drive. That doesn’t make it an off-roader, of course. However with adequate ground clearance and the instant and very controllable torque that’s typical of electric vehicles, it’s more capable on loose tracks and uneven ground than almost anyone who buys one will ever find out. It’s impressively tractable, even on 255/40R21 tyres, and so long as you keep on top of your speed it can pick its way over jagged bumps without feeling as if it’s going to break anything. That’s quite an achievement for what is of course a very road-biased vehicle.

Volkswagen knows a bit about making 4x4s that are good at everything, though, so it’s not an achievement that should come as any surprise. Nor should its all-round excellence on tarmac. It’s as docile as you want around town, drawing the sting of Britain’s broken, pot-holed and pattery urban road surfaces very well despite those huge wheels and low-profile tyres – and it’s as brisk as you want, too, with up to 299bhp and 348lbf.ft from its front and rear electric motors. Unusually for an EV, these don’t just boot you up the backside from a standing start. Yet this is a very usably fast vehicle. Initial acceleration might not be like riding a bullet being fired from a gun, but if you leave your foot in it just keeps on building pace relentlessly. It becomes a flying machine

as you move into the mid-range – and for overtaking, it’s just crushingly capable. Understandably, then, we found it particularly entertaining on fast B-roads. It’s very urgent on the way out of corners, with no need at all to dig for torque – meaning you can be blasting it back up to speed the moment you’ve hit the apex. It’ll cruise all day at motorway speeds, but the more the road winds, the more it excels. With a lovely natural flow to its steering, agile suspension and no end of grip, it’s the sort of SUV you’d choose for a spirited thrash up Snake Pass or the Buttertubs.

Real world

The real-world result of this is that in everyday driving, whether on wet or dry roads it inspires complete confidence in

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itself. That positivity never falters, and neither does the pleasure you get from driving it, whether you’re going for it or just toting your family about the place. On that subject, they’ll be very well looked after. As will you. Volkswagen is known for interiors that play it safe but get it spot-on, and the ID.4 is no different, blending the high-tech, big-screen look of a typical EV with the clean lines and tip-top quality you might recognise from vehicles like the Tiguan and Touareg. In its materials and design, the cabin looks good and feels good. It doesn’t pile on an endless array of tones and textures, in blessed contrast to some vehicles, contenting itself instead with a sensible combination of high-quality grey plastic and piano black trim that goes together well.

You know what you’re going to get with a Volkswagen interior. The ID.4’s has crisp, clean lines and excellent quality, and it blends the high-tech, big-screen look of a typical EV with a level of practicality that might come as a surprise There’s a little red stitching on the leatherlook dash top, but this is restrained enough to look like a highlight. It’s all very pleasing to the eye throughout, and there are no creaks or squeaks or groans from anywhere on the dash.

This in turn is dominated by a very large infotainment screen with a row of haptic buttons below it. The display is very crisp, quick to react and quite easy to navigate, and there’s a small digital instrument cluster clearly visible through the steering wheel.

You can fit one six-footer comfortably behind another without either having to give up on their ideal position. The rears fold close enough to flat, too, allowing the vehicle to swallow cargo to an almost Tardis-like degree

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The overall effect is very pleasing indeed, helping you relax into the vehicle from the word go and bond with it as you drive. This will sound tremendously contrived but, in the same way that people talk about the simple mechanical pleasure of operating an old Land Rover gearbox, the ID.4 gives you a kind of simple electronic pleasure, similar to operating a good stereo. Yes, we’re well aware that a hater might copy this and post it online as an example of why EVs appeal to idiot and are therefore the devil, but ya gotta say it like you see it. Even a hater would have to admit that the seats are fantastic, anyway. They’re sports jobs with one-piece moulded backs instead of separate headrests, and they’re every bit as nice to sit in as they are to look at. They’re trimmed in alcantara rather than slippery leather and they hold you in place wonderfully well – the aforementioned apexhunting antics don’t loosen their grip on your posture at all.

Not left wanting

Talking of posture, the seats have excellent lumbar support. They’re heated, too, and in this model they’ll even give you a massage. It’s one of the most fundamental ways in which a vehicle can look after you, and the ID.4 looks after you as attentively as that concierge guy in the John Wick films. You’re not left wanting for anything.

There’s plenty of head, leg and elbow room, too, and an excellent view ahead – even though the waistline is quite high and the seating position is ensconced rather than perched. The view over your shoulder is better than average, too, though with a reversing camera, surround-view monitor and so on to look after you it’s not often that you’ll need to use it. All this technology is part of a system which, as we mentioned above, works well on the screen – and it does its thing unfussily in every other way too, which means a quick, pain-free connection to the phone you’re mirroring. Going back to the seats, and to the seats in the back, the ID.4 can comfortably accommodate one six-footer behind another. Headroom in the back is not quite as good, as you sit very upright and, if you’re one of those six-footers, the top of your head will be brushing the roof lining, but you’re well positioned between the B and C-posts so you do get a good view out. That may come as a surprise in what is basically a sports crossover, but the ID.4 is a good example of the new packaging opportunities inherent in the way EVs are laid out. It’s based on the VW Group’s MEB platform, which was created specifically for EVs, and another happy surprise is how good it is at swallowing cargo. The rear seat backs fold to lie down on their squabs, sitting a few degrees off flat

but capable of being squashed still further when you put a heavy load on them. The result is a very, very long boot floor that’s accessed through a big, wide tailgate. This is steeply raked, which obviously bites into the height of what you can put in it, but the floor is nice and low (another EV benefit) with the result that its overall practicality is well above average for a car of this nature. Indeed, everything about the ID.4 GTX is well above average. Not including its price, possibly – at £52,865 on the road (£55,615 as tested, with paint, a towbar and alternative alloys accounting for the difference) it’s not what you’d call a cheap car, but it compares very favourably with some of the direct competition and it’s one of the most convincing arguments yet for EVs being capable of stirring your soul. Recently, we read a review of the MG4 X-Power in one of the everything-must-bea-Ferrari magazines. The verdict was that while it might be staggeringly fast, it didn’t have the handling to get the author’s GTI juices flowing and that, to paraphrase, ‘the search for the first true electric hot hatch goes on.’ The search for the first electric hot hatch is not something that’s going to keep us awake at night – but after a week behind the wheel of the brilliant ID.4 GTX, we’d suggest that if you’ve still not found one, you’ve been looking in the wrong place.

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NISSAN QASHQAI E-POWER TEKNA

he Nissan Qashqai is a former class winner in our 4x4 of the Year awards – as is its big brother, the X-Trail. The latter features Nissan’s innovative e-4ORCE system, which uses electric motors to drive all four wheels and a petrol engine to keep their batteries charged; the Qashqai doesn’t have all-wheel drive, but it does have a version of the same arrangement called e-Power sending 188bhp and 243lbf.ft to the fronts. The engine displaces 1.5 litres, which is pretty big for what is just a generator but that’s obviously what it needs to keep the 1.97kWh battery pack fully juiced. You hear it whirring away at times, in particular before it’s fully warmed up – its note stays the same even when you’re speeding up and slowing down, which is quite bizarre, but literally seconds after starting to notice it you’ve stopped again. You certainly don’t notice any engine noise at higher speeds. It’s a quiet, peaceful vehicle to drive in general, though at motorway speeds you do get road and wind noise gathering to disturb the calm. Mainly, the biggest giveaway to it being an electric vehicle is when you put it in e-Pedal mode and regenerative braking starts kicking in to its full effect – that apart, it’s even more like driving any other car than EVs normally are. Reﬁnement is good around town, too, with no roughness or vibrations, and it rides well enough to keep seams and potholes at arm’s length. Even on 235/50R19s, the worst of Britain’s tragic urban roads fail to upset its composure; scruffy and corrugated surfaces can set up a touch of the jitters, but it’s a rarity for that to happen. The composed all-round performance is mirrored by the atmosphere in the cabin. Our test vehicle was the Tekna model, which is second from top in a ﬁve-strong lineup, and it’s very well specced (you can go one higher, if only quilted premium leather massage seats will do), but aside from all that it’s the basics that make it right. These include a big, crisp info screen, good oddment stowage and a commanding view ahead. The driving position is excellent – though if you’re tall, and you need to carry

someone else tall behind you, you’ll need to wind your seat far enough forward that you might start feeling cramped. There’s no way one six-footer is going to sit behind another without both yielding a lot of territory, and even then the one in the back will have their head pressed into the roof. It’s definitely best for kids back there. For carrying cargo, the rear seats fold as good as flat to create a big, usefully shaped luggage space that’s take most things you could reasonably ask it to. When the seats are up, meanwhile, the everyday boot is very well thought out. An under-floor compartment is hidden beneath twin rigid lift-out panels – one of which can be slotted in vertically to act as a useful mini-bulkhead. It sounds like a gimmick but it is in fact genuinely useful.

Easy living

And that’s a good description of the Qashqai in general. It’s easy to settle in to, easy to drive and easy to live with. An excellent heating system plus heated seats, screen and steering wheel all go together to mean it makes dealing with the winter pretty easy too, as we learned on a particularly chilly trip to Scotland. The seats in particular are pretty much volcanic in the way they warm up – if you can keep them on max for more than a minute, check in a mirror to see that you’ve not turned into a lizard. While Nissan is not seen as a premium brand, all this plus an excellent feeling of quality in the cabin helps make the Qashqai feel pleasingly that way in its nature, certainly in Tekna form. It’s slick, well made, well equipped and convincingly classy. As we’ve said, it drives well too. Enough to make an electric vehicle with its own on-board generator feel like the best of both worlds? Well, yes in that it’s such a breeze to drive. But despite the oﬃcial ﬁgures giving it a combined fuel economy of 53.3mpg, by the end of our week in the hot seat the reading on the dash was saying it had done 34.7 over the previous 856 miles. Not exactly stellar, and we know we weren’t thrashing it (unless you count cruising on the motorway at slightly more than average

speed as thrashing it, and if you do we can’t be friends). And there lies our biggest reservation about the Qashqai e-Power. The same vehicle is available in 1.3-litre petrol form, with oﬃcial ﬁgures of 44.1mpg and 145g/ km (or 40.4 and 157 with all-wheel drive). Not as good as the e-Power, but in our experience you’re more likely to actually see them in real life. And, comparing like for like models, you’re looking at £37,050 for the 1.3

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The Qashqai’s boot has two lift-out panels which create a usefully deep hidden stowage area below them. The rearmost can be slotted in vertically to act as a cargo bulkhead, too The cabin feels high-tech, modern and classy. Nissan is not a premium brand but the Qashqai comes on as that kind of vehicle

and £39,210 for the e-Power. The latter is more powerful (190bhp plays 158) and gets you from 0-62 a bit sooner, but we suspect all that motorway driving is what did for its fuel consumption. If we’re right and that’s something you do a lot of, the DIG-T 158 Xtronic, as they call it, will suit you better. The (comparatively) traditional tech becomes more appealing still when you consider that you can get it with four-wheel drive for less than the same e-Power will

cost you with two. While the Qashqai is a crossover rather than an off-roader, it’ll still go places if you drive it right – and for owners with a sense of adventure, we think that will matter more. Nonetheless, this is a version of electric propulsion that sidesteps the biggest concern people still have about EVs by letting you ﬁll up at the pump rather than plugging in to a charger. It could be seen as a compromise, or as the best of both

worlds, depending on how you look at it, and similarly you could say it’s pricey for a Qashqai or cheap at the price. Either way, it’s a very good vehicle. So is every Qashqai we’ve driven, and this is the ﬁrst e-Power, but that just goes to show that there’s more to it than just an engine. And whichever engine you choose, Nissan’s legendary crossover continues to be one of the best family cars money can buy.

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INCREASE SAFETY GREATLY REDUCE YOUR TYRE WEAR DECREASE FUEL CONSUMPTION INCREASE POWER UP TO 10% MAXIMIZE CARRYING CAPACITY IMPROVE STEERING & BRAKING MINIMIZE BODY ROLL

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From roof tents and awnings to cookware and barbecues, LVB supplies all your overland and camping requirements. Sole UK Bush Company importer

UNIT 10 Gunhills Lane Industrial Estate, Armthorpe, Doncaster DN3 3EF

March 2024 I Overlander 4x4

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GIANTKILLING PANDA Naming a small car after a big bear seems like an odd notion. But when Fiat added four-wheel drive to the Panda, they did indeed create a giant among off-roaders Words Graham Scott Pictures Fiat

t’s a strange name isn’t it? Anyone who has watched real-world giant pandas for any length of time will come away astonished that they’re not extinct. Sure they look all cute and cuddly but they’re also clumsy, often helpless and have a ridiculous diet. They’re bears, for heaven’s sake, with a digestion set up for eating meat, yet they eat only bamboo shoots, which have low nutritional value and the pandas aren’t

good at extracting even that. So they have to eat up to 38kg of bamboo shoots and leaves a day. It doesn’t leave a lot of time for personal development or musings on the meaning of life. Plus they have a lot of bulk to keep fed, about the same size as an American black bear. Standing on its back feet it would loom over you, weighing in at around 250lb (113kg). And it’s the national symbol of China. There, it’s known as ‘GuoBao’ or ‘national

A Panda 4x4 Trekking model from 1992. It’s very hard to see how this is going to end well…

heirloom’, something that’s usually priceless and fragile. So when Fiat launched its cute little new vehicle you have to wonder what thought process led to the name Panda. And yet here we are, celebrating 40 years of the Fiat Panda 4x4. That’s slightly longer, by the way, than any panda has lived, in the wild or in captivity. In fact the ﬁrst Panda came off the production line in 1980, but it took Fiat three

The PanDakar in all its glory, finishing one of the world’s toughest tests in 2007 after the famous rally relocated to South America

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Mind the step. The Fiat Panda Monster Truck was used in commercials by the Leo Burnett agency

years to realise that it had the makings of a brilliant mini-SUV. Not that the name SUV had been invented. So they took this boxy three-door front-driver designed by the legendary Giorgetto Giugiaro and decided to give it four-wheel drive and a sensible price tag. The question was: How? The answer was: Go team up with SteyrPuch. The result was: An entire transmission assembly, including clutch, gearbox, drive shafts, rear axle including the diff, and the

brakes, was sent from Austria to be added to the Italian production line for every 4x4 model. Fiat was keen not to go down the technologically complex and expensive route, so it was all straightforward and easy to use. There was no two-speed transfer case, there was just a very short first gear, the ‘primina’, so the Panda could tackle slopes which a panda would fail comically on and roll to the bottom. There was a 965cc

Early tests aimed at demonstrating land mine survivability yielded surprisingly positive results

transverse four-cylinder with just 48bhp, meaning it needed less fuelling than an adult panda. And it weighed just 740kg, the weight of about half a dozen pandas although, admittedly, that spartan interior would have been a squeeze for that many of our black and white bears. That interior, once you’d shooed the pandas out and cleaned up the mess, was indeed pretty spartan. Just ask Fiat’s marketing strategist, Luigi Maglione. When

With mechanical four-wheel drive from Steyr-Puch, they of the Haflinger and later the Pinzgauer, the first-generation Panda 4x4 didn’t mind getting its sills wet March 2024 I Overlander 4x4

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Annual Panda Raid shows that low-tech, low-money desert raids can be huge fun

he was ﬁrst shown the interior design he was confused. Where’s the interior mock-up, he asked, why is it missing? It’s not, they said – that’s it. All this made it cheap and accessible, so you didn’t need to be some wealthy off-road petrolhead to own or drive one. Pull back that lever – there you go, four-wheel drive. But Fiat had not made some urban SUV, they’d actually made a 4x4 that could go properly off-road. You got decent ground clearance, good approach, departure and breakover angles plus knobbly tyres and some underbody protection. So you bring to market a tough, ‘not much to break’ affordable little 4x4. It didn’t take long before many decided this was the perfect tool for off-road competition and exploration. Remember this was 1983. Some of you may remember 1983 while others may not – either because you weren’t born or because now your memory has gone and the meds aren’t working. But that year Margaret Thatcher won another general election, Michael Jackson’s Thriller was No 1, M*A*S*H ended and

Blackadder began. On the car front, seatbelts became compulsory in the UK, at least for front occupants, and President Ronald Reagan announced that the military would make GPS available to the public for the first time. Just in time for explorers to start going crazy places with their Pandas. In a ‘coals to Newcastle’ move, the Marco Polo Expedition, just two years after launch, travelled the entire Silk Road, from Venice to Beijing. Three Fiat Pandas made it to the home of the panda, the first Western vehicles to reach Tibet and Beijing, having successfully crossed the Himalayas. Small vehicles, but that was no small feat. Facelifts kept the range going but it’s worth noting that, along with a 1300cc diesel engine, Fiat added an all-electric model, the Elettra, back in 1990. Granted, it was too heavy, had too short a range and cost too much, but an all-electric city car with 4x4 capability more than a quarter of a century ago is still something to note. Rather more successful was the first major redesign in 2003, a full 20 years after the first model was unveiled. The second-

generation model promptly won European Car of the Year in 2004 and went on to sell literally in its millions. However, for many Italians – and they made up the bulk of the ownership – it was viewed as a spiritual successor to the Fiat 500 rather than the original Fiat Panda. Fiat didn’t care much. Inevitably the boxy shape had gone, to be replaced by something that softened and rounded, but more to the point it went down the inevitable route of losing its basic simplicity and moving to permanent four-wheel drive, with the viscous coupling replaced later by an electro-hydraulic clutch. Engines too were upgraded, which was welcome, with the 1.3-litre Multijet turbodiesel and the 1.2-litre petrol engine helping propel the Panda to the title of biggest-selling 4x4 in 2006 then 2007 then 2008. By 2012 it was deemed time for another major redesign, this time based on something called a ‘Squircle’ which is, as the name suggests, a combination of square and circle. By now the Panda was a more sophisticated vehicle, but it still combined, in

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Take one Panda 4x4, graft it on to a Jeep CJ7 platform and add tractor wheels. It was 390cm tall and was fully functional. You can find it now at the Heritage Hub in Turin

Third-generation Cross 4x4 looked the part and indeed was the part. It won our Crossover of the Year award more times than we can count up to

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Would you like to own a really mint version of the ﬁrst-model Panda? It so happens that Stellantis Heritage (the group behind various Italian brands) has just restored one and put it up for sale. It hasn’t had a hard life. It’s a 2001 model, so late original generation. It spent its whole life pottering about the Miraﬁori factory in Turin, so is a low-stress, dolce vita kind of vehicle. And of course it’s been ‘restored’ to what they call ‘original splendour’ but actually is almost certainly to a standard way above how it came off the production line. It’s a project to make you smile. Or, to put it in Fiat’s words: ‘We are proud of this vehicle which will bring the happiness and lightheartedness of the past to a collector who is passionate about Made-inItaly vehicles.’ Is that you?

Fiat’s valedictory view, the three necessary elements of compact dimensions (at just 3.7m long), the performance and features of a higher-spec SUV and the classic traction of a proper off-roader. That last element was enhanced by the addition of an electronic locking differential, which was something of a ﬁrst in this sector. Once again Fiat started picking up awards straight away, with Top Gear making it their SUV of the Year 2012. Two years later, the off-road community got the cheerful addition of the Cross version. It was now a long way from the original Panda 4x4 but the new look, with greater body protection, signalled the option of Auto, Lock or Hill Descent levels offered

by new engines and new electronics giving ‘torque on demand’. The market was far from cross. To conﬁrm Fiat’s claim that this was a proper off-roader, a Panda 4x4 Cross entered the 2017 Dakar Rally, one of the most gruelling of events. With a 2.0-litre Multijet engine the PanDakar, as it was named, battled through Argentina, Bolivia and Paraguay and ﬁnished the event. But what if you don’t like the constant upgrades we see in our SUVs? The endless increases in technology, weight, cost, complexity? Many hark back to old school, even if they weren’t even around then. For them every March is an opportunity to go back to that old school. That’s when the

Panda Raid takes place in Morocco, as it has done for about 15 years. So, okay, it’s not going to happen for you in 2024 but why not 2025? Old school, ﬁrst-generation Pandas. No GPS, no sat-nav, just a compass and road book. No fancy hotels at the ends of the stages, just your bedding in the desert. No death or glory time trials, the aim is to ﬁnish. Limited support and back-up bar the essentials – you are encouraged to stop and help fellow competitors if they have a problem. Does that sound good? For the 2024 event clearly people think it does – the event has more than 340 teams entered. As the organisers memorably put it: ‘A Panda, two people, separated by a few

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Panda in the wild, with not a bamboo thicket in sight

centimetres for seven days, defying the law of common sense through the deserts of Morocco’. So perhaps the main effort would be not in preparing the vehicle but in preparing the relationship. Actually there are innumerable off-road events where the Fiat Panda is the star, and inevitably it’s the older models that people want for their focus and simplicity. And a kerb weight about 1000kg less than that of a Land Rover 90. Because the Panda gets through the world without making a major splash it’s easy to not notice how competent it has proven over the last four decades. In so many ways, it’s remarkably unlike its namesake.

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UK Destinations To Explore 1

Llanerchindda Farm Cynghordy, Llandovery Carmarthenshire, SA20 0NB Tel: 01550 750274 info@cambrianway.com www.cambrianway.com

Riverside Caravan Park High brentham, North Yorkshire, LA27FJ Tel: 01524 261272 info@riversidecaravanpark.co.uk www.riversidecaravanpark.co.uk

Kingswood Caravan Park Rowan House Gravelly Bottom Road, Kingswood, Maidstone, ME17 3NU 01622 842 096 info@kingswood-caravans.co.uk www.kingswood-caravans.co.uk

Smytham Holiday Park Smytham Holiday Park, Little Torrington, Devon EX38 8PU 01805 622110 info@smytham.co.uk www.smytham.co.uk

Blue Hills Touring Park Crosscoombe, Trevellas, St Agnes, Cornwall, TR5 0XP 01872 552999 camping@blue-hills.co.uk www.bluehillscamping.co.uk

The Hop Farm Family Park Maidstone Rd, Beltring, Tonbridge TN12 6QF 01622 872068 reception@thehopfarm.co.uk www.thehopfarm.co.uk

Woodhill Park Cromer Road, East Runton, Cromer Norfolk, NR27 9PX Tel: 01263 512 242 info@woodhill-park.com www.woodhill-park.com

Locations to stay in the UK

Kingswood Caravans

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TRAVEL

DOG AND BONAPARTE Little more than a day’s drive from Britain, the Alps of northern Italy combine a sublime landscape with a rich military history that dates back to Napoleonic times – and has provided a network of rough mountain trails that are perfect for exploring by 4x4 Words and pictures: Oli Barrington

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At 2993 metres above sea level, Lago Sommeiller is accessed by a trail which starts as a dirt track through forests and meadows then turns into a series of eversteeper hairpins that can only be taken in low range

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hen it comes to adventure, I consider myself genre-fluid (yes genre…). My adventures have thus far consisted of climbing mountains, hunting, scuba diving, getting up close and personal with dangerous animals and most recently riding across the Sahara Desert on top of a freight train carrying iron ore – so I certainly don’t consider myself a specialist in any adventuring discipline. However I will put my hand to anything in the name of expanding my comfort zones and visiting places most would consider inaccessible – and 4x4 driving has always been a means to an end for this. When I was looking for an adventure for last summer, I considered the usual options – and a few unusual ones. Eventually. I decided that I would take my dogs to explore the military trails and instalments in the Alps, which date back as far as the Napoleonic era. As always with vehicle-dependent travel, this is not about getting stuck and digging, winching and towing each other out of holes. The remoteness of these locations means that getting stranded can turn into a dangerous predicament pretty quickly. Getting yourself and your vehicle back home in one piece has to be a constant consideration in every decision along the way. Through a combination of watching YouTube videos, scouring 4x4 and overlanding forums and studying navigation apps like Gaia and Wikiloc, I was able to identify what looked like the best tracks and locations to tackle and put a plan together. For obvious reasons, I didn’t particularly fancy taking on these routes alone in a single vehicle, and I couldn’t find anyone else within my circle of friends who wanted to join the adventure, so I put a post seeking a travel companion in a Toyota Hilux owners’ group on Facebook. Only one person responded; an Irish farmer called Neal who had just got a fleet of Hiliuxes for his business and fancied a bit of an adventure in one of them. Over the following months, we communicated back and forth to agree dates, fine-tune the plan and decide on what equipment and vehicle modifications we needed. Finally, we met up at a service station just outside Lyon. As you do. And 10-4 good buddy, we had us a convoy.

Colle Del Sommeiller

The first route we planned to tackle was Colle Del Sommeiller. This starts in a small Alpine village called Rochemolles and ends at a turquoise lake, Lago Sommeiller, located 2993 metres above sea level and surrounded by year-round snow. The start of the route was a steep dirt track stretching through forested foothills. We gained altitude quickly, then the forest turned into meadows which opened up into spectacular 360-degree panoramas of scenery including a magnificent waterfall and snow-capped peaks stretching far into the distance. After this came a series of extremely steep and tight hairpin bends – too tight for the Hilux to make in round one go. By this stage we were in low range, trundling upwards at no more than 10mph. The route took us into a valley with little vegetation – just rocks, dust, water and imposing peaks in every direction. As we travelled along it, we occasionally passed a few enduro bikes and other 4x4s – including a guided convoy of 10 vehicles coming the other way which we had to stop and allow to pass. At the end of the valley was the final climb to the lake at the top. If we had thought the previous set of hairpins had been hard going, we were in for a shock; loose rock, highly exposed edges and extremely narrow tracks made it a time for serious concentration. We started out, proceeding slowly and very carefully. But then about halfway through the hairpins, my heart sank as I looked up at the route ahead and saw a convoy of 4x4s heading down towards us. I warned Neal over the radio and we tucked our Hiluxes in as best we could to the inside wall of the track to wait for the convoy to pass. They got past with centimetres to spare both between me on the inside and the sheer drop on the outside. As they passed Neal, they relieved his Hilux of a small amount of paintwork – getting up there without a scratch would have been a completely unrealistic expectation anyway, though, so we pressed on unfazed, eventually reaching the lake where we parked up next to the water, let our dogs out to run in the snow and looked across into France – it really was spectacular. As we had started the route late in the day, we seemed to be the last vehicles

up on the mountain. So the descent was uneventful compared to the journey up; we were able to enjoy the scenery and even fly a drone to film our descent. Despite the round trip only being a little over 50 kilometres, by the time we got back down to Rochemolles it had taken more than eight hours of intensive driving and concentration.

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Embedded into the mountainside, the remnants of Forte Jafferau are enormous – as is the effort required to reach it. The fort was built in the late 1890s to house an artillery battery, whose emplacements for eight cannons are still visible on top of its roof. Understandably, if somewhat unnecessarily, the Treaty of Paris at the end of WWII required that all Italian military emplacements along the French border be destroyed; just imagine having to use all your off-road skills to get to the top of a mountain and being rewarded by finding something like this abandoned but intact

Forte Jafferau

The next route, which was the one I was most keenly anticipating, took us up to Forte Jafferau. Built between 1896 and 1898 to house an artillery battery, this subsequently saw service in both world wars. It is the highest military installation in Italy and the second highest in the Alps. however at the end of the Second World

War it was destroyed under the terms of the treaty with France. Today, its extensive ruin remains part of the mountain. One of the things that made this route so eagerly anticipated was the Pramand Tunnel. Carved though a valley wall, this is a kilometre long and just wide enough for a single vehicle. Oh, and it’s knee deep in water.

We headed to the village of Salbertrand, where we turned off the paved road and began the climb up to the tunnel. The route up provided an excellent view of the valley below and ski slopes on the opposite side. On the way, we came to a detour to Forte Pramande – and failing to explore this simply wasn’t going to be an option. The track quickly began to climb

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very steeply and there were several very exposed hairpin bends, the combination of the steep gradient and tight angle meaning it was impossible to see over our bonnets to where the edge of narrow track met the drop into the abyss. We soon decided to leave one vehicle and continue to the fort in the other, so that one person could get out and spot the other. At several points, the camber of the track made it feel as if the truck was going to tip sideways into the void below. I would go as far as to say it was mildly stressful… and I have a good head for heights! Upon reaching the fort, however, we discovered that it was absolutely worth what had been the most challenging bit of driving so far. It’s largely intact and

easy to enter on foot to explore its many rooms, corridors and passageways. It’s also possible to drive up on to the roof of the fort, where there are still remnants to be found of the artillery placements which provided cover over the Bardonecchia valley during World War One. Having seen everything the fort had to offer, we headed back down to our primary trail and continued towards the entrance of the Pramand Tunnel. There’s a single passing point somewhere near the middle and, because the route is in a U-shape, other than the light provided by our headlamps we were in complete darkness not long after heading into narrow entrance. There were places where the sides had collapsed, water poured from

the ceiling and the water on the floor hid obstacles and pot holes. If you suffer from claustrophobia, this is probably not the place for you… Eventually, the light of the exit came into view and before we knew it we were being dazzled by sunlight and once again feeling its warmth after the cold of the tunnel. We pressed on along dusty tracks – still below the tree line, but with every hairpin we gained altitude until there were no more trees and we were on a narrow track that ran along the top of a ridge towards the final climb up to Forte Jafferau. The 360-degree view was breathtaking. As we reached our final ascent to the summit of Mount Jafferau and the fort, we elected once again to leave one of

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Wild camping in Italy is a bit of a grey area legally. To some extent it appears to be a case of not flaunting it, though each national park has its own rules. Obviously, wherever you are the big ones are to be safety conscious with your campfires and not leave behind any kind of waste or litter

the Hiluxes at the base and tackle the climb together, with two pairs of eyes in one vehicle. Another series of steep, narrow and exposed hairpins got us to the ridge the fort straddled, at a breathtaking altitude of 2805 metres. The fort itself was vast, embedded into the almost vertical mountainside. While it is now a ruin, it’s easy to imagine not only what its walls had seen over the years, and what it must have been like for a man to have been garrisoned there – but almost impossible to comprehend what it must have taken to build. We parked up and went off with the dogs to explore on foot. The size of the place, its height in the mountains, the panoramic views it commands… you need

time to take it all in. Eventually, though, it was time to set off back on the drive down to the tunnel. One has to enter the tunnel with no knowledge of whether you’ll meet another vehicle coming towards you – it’s simply a matter of luck. Thankfully, luck was on our side. With time marching on, we decided to camp back at Forte Pramand. This time, we would need to get both vehicles up the extreme trail, in failing light – but, battle hardened after the day’s driving, it seemed a lot easier second time round. Wild camping in Italy is a bit of a grey area – its legality just seems to depend on which national park you are in, the altitude you are at and who sees you. When we

reached the fort, we met a group of Italian friends who were, like everyone else we encountered, extremely welcoming despite our very limited means of communication – which seemed to matter little as we all sat round the camp fire sharing food and drink and doing our best to tell stories. The word ‘idyllic’ tends to be thrown around way too liberally when people are describing camp sites. But waking up in the wilds, completely self-sufficient and surrounded by the grandeur of nature at its most majestic… if that’s not genuinely idyllic, I don’t know what is. We took it easy up there that morning, finally heading back down into the Bardonecchia valley to spend the day relaxing ahead of our next big trail.

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Colle Del Assietta

As it happened, Neal had some work to attend to, so I tackled this one alone. Good timing because, from a driving perspective, Colle Del Assietta is a less taxing route which follows a ridge for some 40 kilometres. Once you’re up there, the driving is pretty easy going. However the weather back down in the valley that morning was torrential, with very low cloud. Enough to turn an easy drive into a major challenge, and not so promising for the scenery – however I took a gamble that it may mean I’d be treated to a cloud inversion when I reached the higher altitudes. To access Assietta, one first has to drive Colle Del Finestre. This is a paved road that climbs the valley side with a dizzying number of hairpin bends. Because of the low cloud, the visibility very quickly deteriorated to not much further than the end of my Hilux’s bonnet. As I climbed the valley side, I could see in my mirror a number of 4x4s behind me on the road which were having to stop and wait each time I took a shunt to get round the tighter hairpins. I was really conscious that I was

holding them up, so I pressed on as best I could in the now near-zero visibility. It was actually getting quite stressful, but there was no turning back now. When I reached the top of Colle Del Finestre, I stopped for a breather… and the vehicles behind me all stopped too. They were a group from Germany and they all thanked me for leading them up through the clouds. If only they knew! I stopped and waited for them to go on their way so I could proceed at leisure and enjoy the spectacular cloud inversion that the Alps had kindly laid on for me. The sun shone above me and the clouds hid what was below – with a handful of mountain peaks breaking through. Once again, it really was spectacular. The driving was easy and after the technical trails of the previous few days, it was a welcome break to just enjoy the scenery without having to focus on the exact position of each of my four wheels. The ridge seemed never ending and the sun was starting to set, so I found a sheltered spot and folded out the roof tent. A boil in the bag meal and a cup of tea and I was ready for sleep. The clouds were

swirling around me and by now I was in the thick of them. A few hours later, I was woken by the loudest thunder I have ever heard. I was sharing the clouds with a ferocious storm. All kinds of thoughts were going though my mind - not least the fact that my ladder was earthing the truck… The storm passed, another came, then a few hours later another… and then it was morning and the sun shone again. I made breakfast, walked the dogs, packed up the roof tent and continued along the track until I reached the ski resort that marked the end of the trail and I was descending beneath the sleeping ski lifts.

Col Du Parpaillon

It was now time to leave Italy. My plan had been to drop down into the French Alps and do a route there that included a near-derelict 120 year old tunnel that was often impassable due to water, ice or rock falls. After that, I would head west to my parents’ house in the Lot Valley and have a more conventional holiday! Neal and I said our goodbyes and I headed south to the nearest village on the

The Tunnel de Parpaillon is no place to go if you value your paintwork, or have claustrophobia. At least it’s straight, unlike the Pramand Tunnel further north, so you can see if you’re about to meet another vehicle coming the other way

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trail that I could see on the map. The rest, I’d have to ﬁgure out when I got there. Three hours later, I was on mountain tracks again, trying to access the ascent to the Tunnel du Parpaillon. I worked on the basis that if I was still ascending, I was heading in the right direction and eventually this worked. Again, the tree line was soon below me and I was in four-wheel drive, carefully picking my way across loose rock. After an hour of continuous ascent, the tunnel entrance came into view. I decided to camp there for the night and head through it in the morning. The view and lingering sunset behind me was one I will never forget. It was in fact so spectacular and peaceful that I decided then that I’d stay the following night in this exact spot – so essentially do the route twice That night, despite the irrational fear that something ungodly would emerge from the ominous darkness of the tunnel entrance in the night, I had one of the most peaceful, wholesome nights’ sleep I’ve ever had. The night sky was spectacular, with the Milky Way clearly visible – being so remote, alone in the silence and rugged

splendour of the Alps, just felt so good for my soul. The following morning, I packed up and headed into the tunnel entrance. The tunnel was just bare, jagged rock inside, however it ran in a straight line and the light of the exit twinkled in the distance. Within a few minutes, I had emerged at the other end – to be greeted by another spectacular panorama of Alpine beauty. What followed was a very exposed track, in the shadow of a precarious looking overhang that followed the valley side until a series of hairpin bends took the route down towards the valley ﬂoor. Including stops to take pictures and to sit and soak up my surroundings, I was at the valley ﬂoor within about three hours. The route then ran through the forest, following a river until eventually it emerged at a small village, and then I was on a paved road again. As I had time to spare, I went in search of a decent meal then travelled on the paved road to my starting point from the day before. Another spectacular night and descent the following morning, and my adventure was over. It will stay in my memories for

ever – right up there with the best of them, and plans are already underway to do it again and discover more trails. There are tour companies that will take you these trails, or ones like them, and for many people the perfect way to explore in a 4x4 is as part of a group like this, with the near certainty that you’ll reach your destinations without incident. For me, though, what makes it a true adventure is to do my own research, speak to people, study maps, prep my vehicle, book a ferry and go, then just ﬁgure out the rest when I get there. To me, for it to be an adventure there can be no certainty that everything is going to go to plan. And that’s what makes adventures like this so rewarding. We drove tracks we didn’t know were passable until we reached the end. We dealt with shredded tyres, a mangled CV joint, vertigo, waking up in the morning not knowing where we’d be spending the next night and being constantly aware that whatever occurred we were on our own. We gained knowledge. We expanded our comfort zones. And most importantly of all, we had a bloody good time.

Oli Barrington documents his adventures on YouTube and Instagram. You’ll ﬁnd videos from this expedition, and others, by going to either platform and looking him up under the name Wolf Nation Adventure.

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PAST T There aren’t many Mark 1 Land Rover Discoverys left these day. Nik Hammond struck gold with a near-concours 1993 V8 – then set about turning it into an overland camper Words and pictures Dan Fenn

decade and a half ago, there was a school of thought that said Land Rover fans looking to modify a Discovery were going to skip the second-generation model and go straight on to the third. That didn’t happen, but then ten years later a new school of thought emerged, saying the time had come when the Disco 3 and 4 were going to be seen as the new go-to vehicles in the overlanding game. Both theories were favoured by inﬂuential people in the aftermarket. And both turned out to be wrong. You do get people playing with the Disco 3 and 4, but witness the way the vast number of readily available D2s dwindled to almost nothing in a few short years. And that’s with their awful reputation for reliability. So the D2 was more popular than the D3 and D4, which themselves have a less than stellar reliability rep. And it’s quite probably the case that anyone who’s modiﬁed any of them only did it because they couldn’t get hold of a decent Discovery 1. Maybe that’s exaggerating. Only maybe, though. Certainly, the original Disco was truck-like in a way the D2 couldn’t match

and the D3 and 4 didn’t try to. And for that, people who know what it’s about love them. Sadly, for all the wonderfulness of its ladder chassis, beam axles, steel springs and Tdi engines, the ﬁrst-generation Discovery suffered from a lower body that was made of cheese. Not even very strong cheese. It was made of feta. And it was every bit as crumbly. Combine this with the convenient fact that old Discovery 1s became dirt cheap in later life, and were therefore perfect quarry fodder, and you have a scarcity of decent ones that’s been making its presence felt for decades. When they crop up, they’re in demand. When Nik Hammond bought the Disco 1 in these pictures, for example, it had appeared on Facebook Marketplace that same day. Less than half an hour before he spotted it, in fact. He paid £1750 and immediately set off to collect his new trophy – and by the time he got there, the seller told him they could have sold it half a dozen times. That’s still only about 45 minutes on from the advert being posted. So they all wanted it. And Nik got it. But why did he want it?

Nik wanted to keep the Disco looking ‘classic,’ so no lift kit and no outsize tyres. 235/70R16 BFG All-Terrains are a case of if it ain’t broke

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TENTS

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The answer is basically that he had already owned several of them, so he knew what they could do. And he knew one worth having when he saw it. Which this one was. Its previous owner had had it for 14 years and done just 6000 miles in that time, with a couple of thousand out of those in the first twelve months, yet it hadn’t ever been laid up. Its MOT history shows a vehicle that was kept running and presented on time year after year – just with, particularly towards the end, no more than a hundred extra miles on the clock. Sadly, the end really was the end for its previous owner, which is why 2019 saw Nik being the guy who was in the right place at the right time to take on a 1993 Discovery V8 EFi 5-door with a genuine 58,000 miles and a string of MOTs including not one single mention of body rust anywhere. Some guys have all the luck.

Well, he had all the luck but he also had a Discovery 3 as his overland chariot. And guess what? It was getting too expensive to maintain. That V8 engine might like a drink, but give me simple any day of the week. The D3 wasn’t Nik’s first expedition motor, either. Overlanding is in his blood, and all his previous 4x4s have been prepped for it to a greater or lesser extent, including a Freelander he used to own and a Volkswagen bus which doesn’t have four-wheel drive but, he argues, is no less capable for all that as you don’t get lulled into trying to go places its lack of ground clearance won’t tolerate. For those times when only the real thing will do, though, it was now all eyes on the Disco. He bought it at that blissful time when no-one knew the world was about to be plunged into lockdown, which unusually for a project was a hindrance rather than a

help, but the project started in early 2020 with remedial work on the body. What? Didn’t we just say that the MOT man never flagged up any issues with rust? Actually, the final test before Nik bought it threw an advisory saying ‘under vehicle has slight rust all over’… So he set about welding the typical areas and ‘it soon got to a point where professional help was needed,’ Cue several months with the vehicle sat in a workshop while its staff sat on furlough getting ever better at Fortnite. Even once it was done, supply chain issues slowed things down still further. But eventually Nik and his partner Leeane got their Disco back. To start with, they were just going to flip it and be done, with a lovely new respray making it look very saleable as it sat there on their driveway, but that was the point when the Discovery 3 finally did

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The roof rack carries a bank of spots, a solar panel and a Batwing awning. The latter zips into a ground tent which is where Nik and Leeane normally sleep, though they do also have a hard-shell unit for the roof

Fuel-injected 3.5-litre Rover V8 is a spring chicken after 30-something years. When Nick bought the Disco, it had less than 60,000 miles on the clock and had been well looked after by a previous owner in whose hands it covered only 6000 miles in 14 years what Discovery 3s do and they decided they had haemorrhaged enough money on it. And so project Disco 1 was on. ‘We sketched out a plan for turning Polly into a light overlanding vehicle,’ says Nik. Polly is as good a name for an old Disco as any, right? ‘The caveat we set ourselves was that the vehicle must remain as stock as possible, and any modifications should be sympathetic to her heritage. So no LED light bars or lift kits!’ Similarly, the Disco stayed on it original tyre size. The tyres themselves are BFGoodrich KO2 All-Terrains, but nothing big and silly here. Not that big tyres are silly per se, but tooling up for war is neither big nor clever when your off-road horizons are well within the limits of the vehicle’s factory spec. If you’re building for overlanding, indeed, there’s a school of thought that says the closer to standard the better.

So what Nik did was very sensible indeed. ‘We began on a comprehensive schedule of works to create a base level of mechanical reliability,’ he explains. ‘We changed the exhaust, shocks, springs, brake discs, brake lines and wheel bearings. The original alloys had to go as steel is better for off-road work. All the rubber seals on the windows were new, but we changed the rubber hoses and belts under the bonnet. All the fluids were flushed and changed including the diffs, gearbox, transfer case and so on.’ A good start, albeit one that would be the right thing to do on a daily, retro classic or indeed any other kind of project. But the good stuff came next – all of it accessories rather than modifications. ‘We’ve fitted a roof rack, roof tent and awning,’ Nik says. ‘The running gear is now protected by a standard sump and tank guard. Spots and

floods are halogen. And 60% of the rear seats were removed and replaced with a storage and 12V leisure system.’ Nick mentioned that the lights are all halogen, and that LED bars weren’t going to be part of the plan, but that wasn’t just part of his desire to keep it period-perfect. There’s actually a practical reason behind it too, if you’re into exploring the chillier parts of the world. The Hellas on the bumper and the smaller spots on the roof rack are all halogen – because they run warm. ‘LEDs can get iced up,’ explains Nik. ‘The heat from the halogens helps keep them clear so you don’t lose your light output.’ These are things you learn from experience. Similarly, the awning is home to a bank of LED lights for illuminating the camping area around the vehicle, and these can be toggled between white and amber. Why? Because amber doesn’t attract

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insects. A blessed relief even in Britain, but there are parts of the Arctic where you get mozzies the size of squirrels and inviting those in to play is definitely something you only do once. Since we’re talking electric stuff, the vehicle runs a split-charge set-up with a 50Ah lithium leisure battery, a roof-mounted solar panel and a Renogy maintenance system. The vehicle charges its own battery as well as the lithium one when the engine is running, then when it’s parked up the solar panel charges first the leisure battery then, when that’s full, the vehicle’s own unit. All the wiring was done by a professional auto electrician – Nik is confident enough on the tools, but he’s also smart enough not to cut corners where it matters. The leisure battery and Renogy unit are housed within a compartment on the bulkhead that’s been installed behind the second row of seats. Make that ‘seat,’ actually, because as Nik mentioned above everything apart from the one behind the passenger has been removed. Aft of that, you open the back door to be confronted by a full-width unit incorporating five drawers and a Dometic fridge. Like the battery box, this is trimmed in carpeting which matches the colours of the vehicle’s cabin. A practical benefit of this is that velcro sticks to it – so Nik and Leann made up a set of ‘stickers’ and now they can swap stuff around as necessary without ever losing anything. And efficiency matters. Making and striking camp is the sort of job where, as a nervous beginner, you start off feeling like you’ve made a complete idiot of yourself in front of a gallery of experts, but then a fortnight later you’re an old hand showing the next crop of newbies how it’s done. Nik points out that overlanding is different to mere camping; the former means setting up somewhere new every night whereas the latter tends to be all about settling in for the duration. Either way, though, the big common factor is that you’re living out of your vehicle. Nik’s Disco is probably more a camper than an overlander, but mainly it blurs the distinction between the two. Obviously, in each case you don’t want to go making your truck more likely to break. Hence the lack of lift, standard tyres and so on. You could add a lot to this list. A couple of mods that come to mind for overlanding would be a raised air intake, to keep dust out

and protect your engine from calamities if a water crossing goes wrong, and a heavyduty clutch. Nik’s V8 runs through an auto box, so the latter isn’t relevant, but a snorkel would almost certainly be on the slate if you were prepping it for long-range work. Of course, carrying everything it takes to turn a car into a home will inevitably mean making it heavier. And what were we saying about modifications? Nik fitted a set of +2” Terrafirma lift springs and heavy-duty shocks on the back, just to keep it from dragging its tail, and if anything it still rides slightly lower there than at the front – where there’s no winch or heavy-duty bumper to weigh it down.

Aside from a set of rock sliders, indeed, almost all the excess weight is at the blunt end. There’s a deceptive amount of woodwork in the drawer unit (again, all done by a pro), while up top a Rhino Rack roof rack carries a selection of equipment from Oztent, Foxwing and Batwing which all works together (by design, not accident) to provide a very flexible living area. Nik’s hard-shell roof tent wasn’t fitted when we did our photos, but the awning was – and he has a Tagalong ground tent by Oztent which zips directly on to it, giving him a sleeping space that’s bigger than a roof tent. Again, you might do it differently in Africa, but for camping trips in the UK and Europe an

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additional benefit of this set-up is that his entire living space is under one roof. As always with any kind of vehicledependant travel, it’s all about the planning. And there’s no one-size-fits-all answer. Thus Nik didn’t add a second fuel tank – even in a V8, he wasn’t going to be to going anywhere so remote that this would become an issue the way it surely would on a full expedition. It was the same deal with an onboard water supply, too. You can spend huge money on kitting out your truck with hot and cold supplies, sterilisers, a shower and so on, but while the Disco is perfectly capable of supporting a few days off-grid, that’s not what it’s all about. After all, wild camping

isn’t even legal in an awful lot of Europe. So instead, he uses lightweight bladders to hold the water he’ll need, secure in the knowledge that a fresh supply is never far away. We mentioned that when we took our pictures of the Disco last summer, Nik also had a Volkswagen camper in his fleet. This was actually one of three overland motors he was running, but the total is now down to two as he decided to let this one go. We don’t know if its new owner was planning to keep on using it as a camper, turn it into a full-house overland motor or even take it back to standard (all the mods on it are reversible, and Nik kept all the seats and so on that he took off so he

could always restore it to the near-concours condition he found it in). But that’s the great thing about a proper 4x4 – it can be anything you want it to be. As it is, back in the days when this Mark 1 Disco was new, Land Rover made a big deal of its potential for family adventures. They knew full well that very few of them would ever go further than the school gate, of course, but those were the days when a Discovery really could live up to its name if you wanted it to. All these decades later, it’s still one of the most honest vehicles Solihull ever made – and Nik’s is a perfect example of everything that made it great.

Nik hired a chippy to do a proper job of building a wooden framed drawer set in the back of the vehicle. Velcro labels mean the contents can be reorganised without drama. The security panel inside the window is used for stowing all sorts of high-traffic items – like toilet roll and, er, condiments. Not a good time for cross-contamination if the latter includes chilli powder…

The larger of the rear seats is tucked away in Nik’s garage. It came out to make space for a bespoke cabinet housing a Renogy split-charge system and 50Ah lithium leisure battery

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ARACHNO

The town of Nardo, in southern Italy, is reputed to be the home of tarantism – a strange aﬄiction which makes you dance, shout and have lots of sex. Doesn’t sound too bad, but it supposedly comes from being bitten by the European tarantula that’s native to the area. Fortunately we didn’t need to worry about that, as we had a Lamborghini Huracan Sterrato to go off-road with instead. And if there’s one thing that’s better than sex… Words: Lamborghini Pictures: Lamborghini

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OPHYLIA W

e walked round the car as we swapped seats, the thick sand and gravel moving and crunching under my feet. Getting back in, I managed to smack the helmet twice on the roof and A-pillar before the instructor plugged my helmet back into the intercom. I kept my mouth shut. ‘Okay’, I heard. ‘The track is clear, two laps then we come in, then we will do some more laps.’ It should have been an exciting thought but the previous sighting lap with the instructor at the wheel had been a blur of spinning wheels, jolting through ruts, opposite lock, and sand and stones clattering up underneath the car. Oil drums on the exits, some ﬁrst- and second-gear corners that went on for ages and you had a great place for a rally car. Not necessarily a great place for a £250,000 supercar. Which, two hours ago, I was still trying to work out how to make go at all. Two hours before we’d left the brieﬁng and they’d shown me to my Lamborghini Huracan Sterrato. The idea sounds ridiculous – take a supercar that is so low it baulks at the gentlest speed hump, and add more suspension, tyres built for on and off the road, and there you go, the Sterrato, a supercar that can go off-road. So it’s 30bhp less powerful than the road version, and doesn’t corner or grip as well. Really?

They told me they’d be leading in a Urus as we were about to head out for a 90-minute road drive. Told me there was a radio in the car, easy to use. No passengers. I sat in the car, looked at the bank of dials and switches, and realised I had no idea how to do more than ﬁre it up – a big button, outlined in red metal, told me that much. Mind you, I knew it was all going to be a bit weird. It had taken 15 hours to get to the location, a hotel right down in the very heel of Italy, near to the Nardo circuit. And this part of Italy is different to anywhere, including the rest of Italy. Most of the Lamborghini team were northern Italians, and this was different even for them. As it was for the Germans who are part of Lamborghini, reminding us that when you look up the chain you see that the iconic Italian brand is owned by VW. So this was a VW launch. Except it was based at the Nardo track in Italy, which is owned by Porsche. And Nardo is where just about everyone goes testing, so security was incredibly tight. And they were right to be careful with a bunch of media hacks on site. There were a lot of cars with black and white tape on. It was the sort of place where you imagine some of the engineers wear Disruptive Pattern Material suits and just stand still while you pass, and they disguise the local horses as zebras just in case.

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However, eventually I got the Sterrato fired up, found a gear which was conveniently first, pressed the right pedal cautiously and twiddled the flat-bottomed steering wheel. We were soon pullling out of the base and back once more into a world of colour. Some things became rapidly apparent. One, this supercar is a doddle to drive. With the sport seats option you’re comfortably ensconced and held firmly and supportively in place. In Strada mode – activated by a toggle on the wheel – and the dual-clutch seven-speed gearbox in auto, the car rumbles fairly quietly along. It hits seventh early thanks to the monumental 413lbf.ft of torque from the 5.2-litre V10, and you could simply drive along like that all day. It’s about as close to incognito mode as you’re going to get with a Lamborghini. And it just rolls along. The roads down there look like they’re still repairing repairs they did a hundred years ago. The roads are bumpy, rough, potholed and horribly patched. Sound familiar? Yes, like England. Only worse if you can imagine such a thing. But this is a backwater, beyond the reach of much of even the EU, and it shows. We – there were two cars and the Urus – stopped by the sea for a break we

didn’t really need. I didn’t want to get out. It’s amazing in there. Everything is black Alcantara or carbon or red material or metal. Some of it is done for effect, like the carbon door handle which feels quite flimsy. Along with the loop of red fabric for the door release – it looks like it’s made from seatbelt material – you get a sense of being in something special just by the time you’ve shut the door. It is so damn ergonomic you just feel settled, planted in there. The two door mirrors work really well, which is handy as the rearview mirror really should be taken off. You literally can’t see anything through it at all. But if you’re looking for blue lights then the door mirrors are more than enough.

Massive carapace

You can’t see through the rearview mirror because of the massive carapace that covers the roof and rear of the car. It leads to a mighty air intake set up high where dust and mud and grit won’t get in. That’s a reminder that this is not just a road car. But, honestly, you’re never going to forget that V10 which is just behind your head. When we got going again we found a bit of space and I went for kickdown. It’s spectacular but I soon had to brake to

avoid hitting the Urus. I fell back again to repeat and this time I found the second kickdown. Oh. For a millisecond I thought I’d broken the thing because there’s a sort of silence. It reminded me of a scene from a Terry Pratchett book where our hero looks up to see a dragon on the roof looking down at him. He hears a sound, and it’s the intake of the dragon’s breath and he can see the pilot lights deep inside the scaly nostrils. He knows what is going to happen next. It was like that, a momentary pause, a gathering. And then everything exploded all at once. The noise was like an angry dragon, flaming and howling, and the Sterrato simply hammered forward, the wheel sawing to and fro as the tyres all scrabbled to contain the instant release of 602bhp. The needle flicked toward the redline at 8500rpm, switched up, did it again and again as fast as I’m writing. I needed to stop this avalanche as there were things to consider. The outskirts of a village, the cars in front, possibly a nun tottering across the road with an ancient dog and two delightful children skipping along in tow. I didn’t care. My right leg seemed to have locked and it took a real physical effort to get my foot off the throttle. I found I was breathing

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The Haldex system will let you get the back out in the right mode, but otherwise keeps traction to a tremendous degree

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porno hard, and so pumped with adrenalin I needed the seatbelts to keep me in place. I absolutely needed to calm down, get a grip, or this wasn’t going to be pretty. This was not the moment to think about what a weird part of the world this is. You know until very recently indeed local people suffered from tarantism, right? You know what that is? It’s like a mania that drove people to do crazy things, dance, shout, and mostly have endless sex. And the cause, everyone knows, is from being bitten by a tarantula. The Tarantella dance is still a thing. People don’t just get a sniffly nose and a cold down here. There are places here where Christianity has barely penetrated, where the law never went and where life was brutally hard even though the weather is gorgeous and there are plenty of fine things like amazing seafood to be captured from the sea. And of course wine and olive oil. But even that isn’t straightforward. We finished our break and moved on, only now, oh look, sigh, he’s discovered the

other driving modes. Yes, he’s pressed the Sport button and now he’s disengaging the auto. It’s time. Nurse – the paddles. It got worse. Because I discovered when you changed down using the paddles there was a delightful little hydraulic ‘tsk’ behind my head instantly followed by a throttle blip and then some cackling from the exhaust. It got to the point where I was changing up too many gears just so I could come down through the box so that both exhaust and driver were cackling happily. It actually wasn’t quite so jolly out the windows. Sure, there are a lot of vineyards here, home to the fabulous Primitivo grape (meaning ‘first’ not ‘primitive’), which makes some splendid red wine. Some of the vines are incredibly ancient, possibly coming from Croatia or Greece many centuries ago. They’re matched by even more ancient olive groves, the trees gnarled and twisted with great age. With 60m olive trees, the region produced half of all of Italy’s olive oil a decade ago. Then came a terrible

disease which has killed over 20m of them. Fields lie grey and wrecked, the carcasses of the trees looking like they’re still writhing in their death throes. It’s horrible and there’s no cure in sight yet and the disease marches north about 12 miles every year.

Simple thoughts

We got back to base in a thoughtful frme of mind, to eat olives, local cheese and ham and amazing bread. Simple is all you need sometimes. And I didn’t need a big lunch as I knew that immediately after it I’d be driving on the off-road course. The instructor repeated his message. ‘Okay, the track is clear, two laps.’ You look at the car from the outside and you just know you’re going to be limping round with the front nose splitter hanging off while the sills will be broken in several places and much of the paint will have been abraded off. (Which would be messily expensive as the chassis is made of aluminium and carbon fibre and the bodywork aluminium and composite.) And

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yet somehow that doesn’t happen, even with me at the wheel. Somehow we stayed away from the barriers, hit 100kph on one of the impossibly short straight bits between the long turns and even managed to tuck the nose in, rotate the car round it, then ﬁre it out the other side. The Haldex electronically controlled all-wheel drive system, which has a mechanical selflocking diff at the rear, will let you get the back out in the right mode, but otherwise keeps traction to a tremendous degree. The unique Bridgestone Dueler tyres have ridiculous amounts of grip. You look at them and can’t work out how they do it, given they work on the road. In fact it’s all ridiculous as you balance the car on its prodigious torque and make it ﬂow round without spinning out into the shrubbery. Later I asked Lamborghini’s Director of Communications, Tim Bravo (yes that is his name) whether any owner would actually do such a thing. He promptly whipped out his phone and showed me a

happy customer doing exactly that, one of several who have shared rooster tail clips with him. Most owners won’t only have this one Lambo, they’ll have several, and they simply think differently to you and me. And they own land. And this Lamborghini is a different beast to virtually any other supercar bar Porsche’s new 911 Dakar. To many, the name Lamborghini conjures up fairly ghastly images of Andrew Tate (‘all my team have Lambos’) driving up to a nightclub in Dubai with a suitable passenger. The Sterrato is different. We’ll keep calling it the Sterrato, rather than the translation of Dirt Road just to keep the sniggering down at the back. For sure, it’s not exactly a rival to a Land Cruiser off-road, but it’s not meant to be. However, it can handle a rough track like a full-blown rally car, which merits its inclusion in this publication. But even that isn’t really the point. I’m no supercar expert but those who are voice the thought that this may be the

best supercar they’ve ever tested. Why? Because it’s slower, doesn’t handle as well? Well, sort of yes. Because the Sterrato is now a more comfortable, practical supercar that owners can drive for longer, in more comfort, and with less fear. Let’s be honest, after decades riding really fast motorbikes I can attest that most supercar owners can do little more than point and squirt. Give them a 100mph corner on the roads and they’ll back off rather than commit. The cars are so awkward and hard and unforgiving unless you have real talent and commitment. The Sterrato softens all that, and that makes it fun. When you can’t keep on adding power or speed what can you do? The answer, as Lamborghini has demonstrated, is you can make it more enjoyable, more fun. So, do you want one? Even if you had the £233,000 you can’t buy one. They made 1499 – and they’re all sold. So if you’re looking for a fun time I suggest you ﬁnd a tarantula. Follow me for more relationship advice.

Carbon and composite bodywork are not the stuff of traditional off-road engineering. But they’re very Lamborghini

It’s not a Strata Florida car but it’s made to stop as well as it goes. And it goes like no off-roader has ever gone before

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11/04/2023 18:01 17:24 13/11/2023

NEXT MONTH

CAMBODIA

Exploring the hidden corners of a vibrant nation

CUMMINS AND GOIN’ Old Defender transformed into a high-tech ultra-truck

RUBICON TRAIL

History and future of the world’s most famous green lane

PLUS D-Maxes exploring the Lakeland lanes

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APRIL 2024 ISSUE: ON SALE 14 MARCH 64

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08/01/2024 11:06

THE NEW-LOOK ISUZU D-MAX

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BOOK A TEST DRIVE AT ISUZU.CO.UK All fuel consumption and emission values are based on the new WLTP (Worldwide Harmonised Light Vehicle Test Procedure) test cycle which uses real-world driving data. Official fuel economy for the standard Isuzu D-Max range in MPG (l/100km): Low 25.1–27.6 (10.2–11.2). Mid 31.4–36.4 (7.8–9.0). High 36.0–39.4 (7.2–7.8). Extra-High 29.0–30.8 (9.2–9.7). Combined 30.7–33.6 (8.4–9.2). CO2 emissions 220–241 g/km. Visit Isuzu.co.uk or contact your local Isuzu dealership for more information.

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