The littlest Pajero

You don't see many of these Mitsubishi Pajero Juniors any more – and you certainly don't see this one, which was written off in December 2004. At the time the picture was taken, this Junior was Mitsubishi's media demonstrator and what a capable little machine it was. The 'Jr' was much more comfortable than its obvious rival, the Suzuki Samurai, and still had more performance to offer at 100km/h, compared to the Suzuki which at that speed had pretty well given its all. Off-road, the Junior performed as well as the Suzuki. It used a sweet 1094cc engine producing just 59kW, but then the vehicle's weight was only 960kg! Wikipedia has some stuff on the Junior here. And there's a good spec sheet at this site.

Four great days in the middle of nowhere

One of the top off-road trips, the Motu School East Cape Safari, is on again from January 30 to February 2. Here's a selection of photos from previous events. The trip follows a circuitous route in, around and across farms, forests, and rivers in the East Cape region, The group camps each night in a different area. To check if there are still vacancies, and to reserve as spot, call Paul or Shelly at 0-6-863 5804. The Kauri Coast, in Northland, is also on again in 2011. There's an earlier post on it here.

Where in the world … a readership update

4wdNewz has commented before on its readership, first on the number of visits from Russia, then the American 'invasion'. As of today, the top 10 nations from which readers have come are: New Zealand, Panama, the US, the Ukraine, Australia, Germany, Malaysia, Nicaragua, Russia and Hungary. New Zealand, of course, is way ahead of the others but Panama's edging out the US is a surprise. Not sure why that should be. Anyway, as always, a warm welcome to overseas visitors – whatever your reason for taking a peek at our muddy little world!

Alloy underprinnings for 2012 Range Rover

Spy pictures are now appearing on the Internet (and in today's AutoMotive News in the New Zealand Herald) of the 2012 Range Rover, which will have an aluminium chassis, saving some 400kg over the current model. Well, yes, it’s a monocoque body, but the engineers say so much work has been done to reinforce the underpinnings that it’s as close as dammit to a separate platform. The ‘chassis’ will also underpin the next Range Rover Sport, which now rides on the Discovery's platform.

The spypix don’t give away a lot, although there are hints of the promised roomier interior, a rounder nose and lower roof.

Producing lighter bodies is a major crusade at Land Rover, so don’t be surprised to see alloy underpinnings also appearing on the Discovery and all-new Defender.

Underneath a well shielded Range Rover Sport today;
one day soon it'll be shiny alloy.

Nirvana for lovers of old Land Rovers

Here's something from YouTube for lovers of old Land Rovers. If you're not an enthusiast don't even bother; you'll have dozed off before you have time to push the 'stop' button.

Beyond the Waikumete incident

Whenever boy racers are asked why they act as they do on our roads, one reason usually given is "because there's nowhere else to go". Other reasons are that it's fun and it pisses-off "authorities" which range from the police, to parents, to anyone over 30. Last night, viewers of TV One's Close Up programme were probably appalled, and rightly so, that a 21 year old had taken his father's elderly Toyota Surf and done some urban off-roading in the huge and obviously inviting Waikumete Cemetery, driving over graves and leaving some fairly serious ruts. He was caught by hidden cameras.

I suspect that there's some of the boy racer reasoning behind this awful transgression – of all places to try urban off-roading! – in that there are few opportunities to go four-wheel-driving in this SUV-laden newly-combined city of 1.4 million, and it's getting worse all the time. One by one, local authorities took away access to paper roads that provided some opportunities if you knew where they were. Beach access has been restricted, or threatened. Access to the local forests has for the most part been curtailed. The Jeep Woodhill 4WD Park has opened, but the Extreme 4WD Park has closed. Even clubs are often found scratching their heads over locations for trips.

Over the years, the organised 4WD movement has made sensible approaches to local bodies, including the Auckland Regional Council, for permission to use some "rubbish" land that's good for little else but off-roading. These approaches came to nothing. Perhaps recreational 4WD enthusiasts need to get in the public's face a bit more because lack of off-roading opportunities will only lead to further incidents like the one at Waikumete.

Hmm, well I got that wrong ...

Grrr...

Having come from 12 years with a highly modified 4WD, I vowed to leave my new Wrangler Rubicon 2-door pretty much alone. Decent tyres just one size bigger than stock, decent shocks, strong rocksliders on the sides, a good nose skidplate, some recovery points and no messing around with suspension lifts, fancy bumpers (despite the Wrangler's being godawful) or any of that sort of thing. Careful, thoughtful driving, along with the standard diff locks and swaybar disconnect would see me everywhere I needed to go.

If you're thinking along similar lines, whatever your make and model, I'm here to say right now that we're both wrong. You won't have enough ground clearance. Your plastic-coated factory bumpers will be the rubbish you thought they might be, but hoped they wouldn't. I'm not having trouble (so far) with clearance at the diff heads, but with general body clearance. Careful observation has told me I'm about 50mm shy, and fortunately good suspension kits offering this sort of lift are plentiful. I'll probably go back to ARB, having had a good run with that company's kit on the Defender 90. For sure, even more air between me and the track might be nice, but 50 mils should lift me over the silly little snags I'm encountering.

Apart from being flimsy, the Wrangler's front bumper compromises the approach angle and the rear is a most stupid design into which the number plate holder is integrated. This holder sticks below the bumper proper and it's only going to take one or two more strikes to damage or even rip the thing off. ARB products and a liberal application of money will solve these problems, but they'll add weight and one of my aims was to keep extra weight low.

Oh well, my original plans seemed sound at the time. I'll report back as the project progresses.