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Monthly Archives: November 2013

New Land Cruiser Arrives

The timing didn’t work this year for us to have a Toyota Land Cruiser in our 2014 4×4 Of The Year test. This is the first time the model has been ‘missing’ for many a year. The reason was simply that the new model had yet to arrive in the UK. Details have now been released to confirm that it will be on sale on 1st December at a starting price of only £34,995 – making it something of a bargain in the Premium class. Some subtle exterior changes have been made, and the new Land Cruiser will have the Toyota Touch 2 touchscreen multimedia system available for the first time, featuring Google Street View, which the company claims is a UK industry first for Toyota. The models will be available in Active, Icon and Invincible specification. We detailed Toyota’s off-road systems in our December issue, and the new Land Cruiser takes a lot of this one step further with the Icon grade having all the off-road driver assistance technology available as standard. This includes, crawl control, multi-terrain select, trailer stability control, multi terrain monitor, lane change assist with blind spot monitor system and rear cross traffic alert, rear electrical diff lock and fuel tank protector. Even at £52,495 for the top of the range Land Cruiser Invincible, this does represent a lot of 4×4 for the money. New Range Rover or matching his and her Land Cruisers, anyone?

 

Second-hand market new

Seller’s market
New car sales in the UK are booming, yet second-hand dealers aren’t knocking down prices as their forecourts fill up with trade-ins, and as Bob Cooke explains, that’s not likely to change any time soonIt may have more to do with the ridiculously high cost of rail travel than with the level of enjoyment to be experienced on Britain’s crowded roads, but sales of new and second-hand cars have been going through the roof in the past few months. The 63-plate boosted September sales by over 12 per cent, making it the best-selling month since March 2008. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders say the increase has partly been fuelled by an increase in demand from private buyers attracted by increasingly fuel-efficient new models – the average consumption of cars purchased in the last three months is 55mpg.

That would seem to preclude many leading 4x4s, but Land Rover reported its best ever September sales with 10,769 vehicles registered, up 11 per cent on the same month last year with Defender sales up 30 per cent, the all new Range Rover up 24 per cent and Evoque up 35 per cent. The new Range Rover Sport made a strong start with sales of 1,309 vehicles during what was only the second month of customer deliveries.

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New headlights

Extreme 4×4 now has new seven-inch LED headlights. Each light has a three year warranty, is “E” marked and has sealed beam technology with polycarbonate lens and sealed electronics. The headlights are claimed to offer 50 times the life of compatible Halogen lights, making them perfect for off-road use. The lights are available in left and right-hand drive format and come with the H4, three blade connector system. For more details, contact the guys at Extreme 4×4 on 01255 411411 or go online.

Website: www.extreme4x4.co.uk 

 

DAB conversion kit

It is estimated that by 2015, all new vehicles will be fitted with DAB digital radios, but just three years ago that percentage was below five per cent. This means that the vast majority of vehicles on the roads cannot receive digital programmes. Now, quite apart from the fact that any music enthusiast must listen to Radio 6 Music (only available on digital) there will come a time when FM ceases, so a conversion kit seems a good idea to us. Indeed, the government is due to announce when the ‘switch over’ to DAB will happen later this year. This new kit has been produced by Celsus, which when fitted upgrades your existing car audio system. You can buy direct (at a cost of £149.99, inc VAT) by going online to DAB Motion. You will also find out where your nearest installer is located, and you should be able to get this fitted for a total of around £200.

Website: www.autostylinguk.co.uk 

 

ARB awnings arrive

A comprehensive new collection of touring products from ARB is now available from the team at Arbil. The range of awnings, walls, windbreaks and mosquito nets are available in two sizes, both made from the same lightweight 300-denier Oxford polyester. The new 2000mm wide awning is compatible with the majority of vehicles, for longer vehicles 2500x2500mm is also available. The windbreaker option is cleverly angled to direct winds over the top of the awnings. To learn more about this new range, call the guys at Arbil on 0845 600 4556, or go online to the Arbil site.

Website: www.arbil.co.uk 

 

The snow sock

In our Winter Preparation feature in the last issue we mentioned the snow sock. This is a great ‘get-you-home’ option for when the weather turns. You slip these covers over your tyres and they give considerably more grip and traction. A lot easier to fit than chains, and don’t give any nasty vibrations when driving. Auto Styling is able to supply ISSE’s Snow Sock, together with a great many other special winter products. Check out the comprehensive website.

Website: www.autostylinguk.co.uk 

 

One of the most individual events on the off-road calendar, Mudmaster is a mixture of on and off-road driving skills, navigation, orienteering, even a quiz on the Highway Code. Quite a challenge, therefore, as we discovered

Words and photography: Alan Coutts

mudmastersMudmaster is planned with military precision; “improving road safety, developing both on and off-road driving and map reading skills”, the organisers say, and it does all of these and more. So what can crews expect? All action navigation, trials, autotests, regularity runs and orienteering through forest, over field and quarry sites across central Scotland. This year a dozen or so MAN SV military trucks are in the mix, going through their off-road paces on various sites; they are truly impressive, with semi auto selectable boxes and diff locks to die for. What if they got stuck? The army has the latest recovery answer on site – a 32 ton MAN heavy recovery truck capable of retrieving the heaviest vehicles on operations. Powered by a 440bhp, 10.5-litre, Euro 4 compliant six cylinder turbo diesel engine, it has 8×8 wheel drive and self-levelling suspension to negotiate rough ground. It can pluck a truck right out of the mud with a lifting capacity of 15 tons at a distance of 2.3m, and can tow a 44 ton vehicle should the need arise. It’s well impressive.

Crews chatted happily in the watery morning sun after scrutineering, and from the accents it was apparent that Mudmaster had attracted teams from all over the UK and beyond; a huge 69 entries, which with passengers meant hundreds of happy off-roaders had turned up for the event.

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4x4 OF THE YEAR 2014It’s hard to believe that we are now into our third decade of publishing this magazine’s annual 4×4 Of The Year mega test. Needless to say there isn’t another magazine that can claim anything close to that kind of experience and dedication to its subject. The knowledge and experience that such a heritage creates cannot be easily matched, and it’s fair to say we are proud of what we achieve; especially in today’s more frugal times, which limits the resources available. Or to put it another way, this group test is produced by a small, dedicated editorial team. At all times, our testers are as objective as possible; of course we are all human, we love our 4x4s, and so include some necessary subjectivity to our test regime.

As before, we have split the 30 vehicles tested into groups, each of which has its own class winner and a Highly Recommended, runner-up. Those winners are then matched together for us to decide an overall titleholder for 2014. To get to our final decisions, we look at each vehicle’s on and off-road ability, its overal competence, we consider value for money, and whether the machine is fit for purpose. This later category is how we match a £15,000 Fiat Panda 4×4 with a £100,000+ Range Rover, to surprising results at times!

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Hils BlogAs we come to the end of the year, and complete our 2014 4×4 Of The Year mega test, things look good for the future of quality 4x4s

Another 4×4 Of The Year has come and gone. Every year throws up something new and fascinating to get our teeth into as 4x4s continue to have a real presence in the overall car market. These days, any manufacturer that doesn’t offer a 4×4 of some form seriously needs to redress that glaring omission.

The SUV/Crossover sector has ballooned in the last few years, as has the luxury end of the market. And it’s going to get even bigger with Jaguar and Bentley soon to be in the mix. Then we have Land Rover continuing its gradual phase of development, creating particular families within the group. Range Rover has established itself with the Range Rover, Range Rover Sport and Evoque. Latest news is that a Discovery range is about to become a new family. The ageing Discovery is being revamped. A new baby Discovery will replace the Freelander and there will be a larger sibling to replace the Discovery 4. In many markets the name ‘Discovery’ doesn’t actually exist. For instance, in the USA it’s known as the ‘LR4’. In future this and other markets will come to know the Discovery name as all the vehicles built on that platform will have ‘Discovery’ badged on the bonnet, like all the Range Rovers do now.

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Winter 2013 Issue of 4×4 Magazine

winter coverWelcome to the 4×4 Of The Year issue. In many ways, this is the most important issue we produce, where we get as many of the latest 4×4 models to one venue and decide which one deserves our respected and coveted award. We’ve been doing this massive group test for a long time, some of us don’t even want to think how long, and this year was as good as ever with some highly significant models on test for the first time. When they were all parked up, we added the value and found that we now had a box of car keys (or key fobs) for vehicles with a total value of over £1.3million! Quite apart from blinking a little at the responsibility, and the fear that at some point we would surely mislay a set of keys, it was interesting not just to wonder at the total cost, but the variety. The enthusiasm for new 4x4s is indeed a broad church.

This year we had a number of new SUVs, together with a couple of brand new mini 4x4s and a couple of highly significant models at the very other end of the food chain. And that was despite the fact that we had no Toyota Land Cruiser this year, no BMW X5, and no popular Nissan X-Trail, all because brand new versions are on their way over the coming months but had not been released in time for our test. The world of the 4×4 is booming it would seem. Indeed we had hoped to have a new Chinese SUV for this year’s test, but it seems that will be next year, as will the new Jeep Cherokee… and probably half a dozen new offerings from Jaguar Land Rover!

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