You know the deal by now. Moving over to electric car is a necessity. You might agree for the sake of
the planet or you might think it’s all a big scam and they’re actually worse but the government has spoken and that’s
that. The industry is getting more and more electric with each new model and all you can do is rant angrily on social media.

If there’s one vehicle among all of them that’s guaranteed to wind up those with a child-slavery-in-Bolivia-or-something stance on EVs, it’s the Lotus Eletre. ‘Simplify then add lightness,’ said Lotus mastermind Colin
Chapman, and EVs are heavy. Not only that, it’s an SUV. An SUV! Blazes…

Chapman also said something along the lines of ‘adding power makes you faster on the straights. Subtracting weight makes you faster everywhere.’ And here we are in a Lotus SUV with, get ready for this, 905bhp. Not a misprint. Nine hundred and five. We’re pretty sure this is the most powerful production 4×4 we’ve ever seen, and aside from the occasional billionaire level hypercar it must be among the most powerful cars full stop. It has 905bhp, and 726lbf.ft, and it weighs 2640kg. Not a great deal of lightness added there, then.

Read the full article in the February issue of Overlander 4×4 –

https://shop.assignmentmedia.co.uk/issue/4×4202502

We’ve always kind of loved the Volkswagen Tiguan. It’s a bit like a smaller Touareg, and we’ve always loved that too,
ever since way back in 2003 when the first example came thundering in on a wave of V10 goodness.

The Tiguan was never quite that mental but it’s always been one of those vehicles you can’t help but admire. Its case wasn’t helped when the Skoda Kodiaq came out and it was a bit like when your hot new girlfriend takes you home to meet her family and you discover that her sister is ever hotter, but the sales charts showed that there was plenty of room in the market for both. We’re clearly not the only ones who’ve always loved the Tiguan.

The new Kodiaq came out last summer and has just been crowned 4×4 of the Year 2025. There was a new Touareg quite recently too and it’s as suave as ever. And then there’s the new Tiguan – which, unlike the old one, looks and feels more like a smaller take on the Touarag than a more Volksy take on the Kodiaq.

Read the full article in the February issue of Overlander 4×4 –

https://shop.assignmentmedia.co.uk/issue/4×4202502

Every now and again, someone does something mad and you’ve just got to stand back and admire them for
it. I’m not talking about mad in the Cape Fear sense, or the Charge of the Light Brigade or something like that – more the kind of madness, if that’s what it is, that drove people to climb Everest or discover America. Insert joke of choice here.

It’s not quite in the same league as those world-class feats of boldness. But someone, somewhere looked at the Cupra
Formentor and said ‘let’s turn it into an offroader.’ And then the people he said it to, rather than making some tired comment about answering a question nobody had asked, said yeah, alright, let’s. So they did.

The someone, at least at a corporate level, is JE Design. The company is German, as are so many of the most visionary tuners and modifiers, and it specialises in VW Group vehicles, specifically VW itself, Audi and Seat. Cupra is Seat’s stand-alone premium performance brand, not unlike what Lexus is to Toyota in terms of luxury.

JE says its main focus is ‘styling in the aerodynamic sector using synthetic materials that are manufactured using the methods of vacuum forming, injection moulding and foam plastic technology.’ Got that? We think it means they make
body kits. But there’s a lot more than just a mere body kit to this bad boy.

Read the full article in the February issue of Overlander 4×4 –

https://shop.assignmentmedia.co.uk/issue/4×4202502

Scottish Mountain Rescue recently held its annual National Training Conference. Naturally, off-road driving was one of the skills the charity’s volunteers were learning – and Ineos was on hand with a fleet of Grenadiers to help them do just that.

Based at Glenmore Lodge in the Cairngorms, the event saw representatives of ten mountain rescue teams tackle a variety of real-world rescue and recovery scenarios on the nearby Alvie Estate, using Ineos’ Grenadier station wagons and Quartermaster pick-ups. ‘We were able to provide our volunteers with crucial handson 4×4 coaching, training them to tackle tough terrain without the use of a vehicle-mounted winch,’ explained Ray Smith, 4×4 Lead at Scottish Mountain Rescue.

‘These skills are indispensable in many rescues where 4x4s are used, not only to transport volunteers to remote locations but also to move casualties and act as a mobile centre of operations. Everyone was impressed by the capability, comfort and characteristics of the Grenadiers.’

Read the full article in the February issue of Overlander 4×4 –

https://shop.assignmentmedia.co.uk/issue/4×4202502

‘THE MOST INTENSIVE TESTING ANY RANGE ROVER HAS EVER ENDURED.’ That’s quite a claim, but it’s what JLR says the forthcoming new Range Rover Electric is currently being put through as it endures temperatures exceeding 50°C in the deserts of the United Arab Emirates.

These tests make for eye-catching marketing, of course. But there’s much more to it than just that. The vehicle will debut a new Intelligent Torque Management system which allocates the job of managing wheelspin to each individual electric drive control unit. According to JLR, this reduces the reaction time at each wheel from around 100 milliseconds to as little as 1 millisecond – allowing the system to negate the results of traction loss more effectively than ever before.

This has been demonstrated in the UAE in particular when driving on fine sand. JLR says that during testing, its vehicles
are required to scale it five times without showing any reduction in performance in order to get a pass mark – and that the Range Rover Electric completed the feat with flying colours. ‘Well balanced weight distribution and an advanced suspension system maintain control and stability effortlessly through the sand, performing with ultimate composure. Uncompromised traction systems provide instant torque allowing for quick acceleration, responsiveness and a refined drive even when navigating diverse dune formations.’

Read the full article in the February issue of Overlander 4×4 –

https://shop.assignmentmedia.co.uk/issue/4×4202502

First there was the Grenadier, the simple and affordable off-road utility truck that was going to carry on where the old Land Rover Defender left off. Then there was the Grenadier, the remarkable but not very affordable premium off-roader that came on like the old Defender but picked up where the new one started. And now there’s the Quartermaster, the double-cab that takes the same formula and uses it to create a 4×4 pick-up like no other.

It’s like no other because it has beam axles at both ends. Yet in other ways there are similarities to other pick-ups currently on the market. You can have it with a 3.0-litre petrol engine: the Ford Ranger says hello. Its cabin is taken directly from a station wagon: step up the KGM Musso. The tax man will laugh at your efforts to slip by unnoticed:
soon, everything.

There’s another way in which the Quartermaster differs to the rest of the pickup market, however. The model we drove was a Fieldmaster, which gave it a starting price of £73,730. Add all the options that were on our tester and now it’s standing at £84,028. You can still do an awful lot more on a new Defender but as pick-ups go it’s on its own.

Find out more in the January issue of Overlander 4×4 –

https://shop.assignmentmedia.co.uk/issue/4×4202501

You might say that £55,730 is a lot of money to pay for a Hyundai. But it’s not much to pay for a house. And this is a Hyundai that’s the size of a house.

Or at least that’s how it looks. The first Santa Fe was a spongy and rather unpleasant thing. The second was a quantum leap forward in every way. The third and fourth did everything well apart from be noticed. And now they’ve gone and built the Tate Gallery on wheels.

Unbelievably, actually, the new Santa Fe is only a couple of inches longer than the previous one. Equally unbelievably, it has the same wheelbase as the Kia Sorento, whose engines and platform it shares. It just shows what car design can do, because even after three decades of pointing out to people that our big, clumsy Nissan Patrol was actually smaller than their slinky little Jag XKR and so on, it still twists our melon to look at the new Santa Fe and think that it’s just a
normal sized SUV.

Read the full article in the January issue of Overlander 4×4 –

https://shop.assignmentmedia.co.uk/issue/4×4202501

Paul Rowlands and Neil Lloyd survived a dramatic final weekend of the Motorsport UK British Cross Country Championship (BXCC) to take the title by just one point from Aston Cox and Simon Kerfoot. Walters Arena in Wales was the venue for the final two rounds of the championship and, going into the event, multiple crews were in with a chance of lifting the trophy.

Richard Watson and Paul Hughesheaded the leader board after round four but their victory hopes ended on the first run of round five when clutch problems on their Milner Evoque resulted in a stage maximum. They went back out in their new car, the ex-Mark Jacques Lofthouse Freelander, but this had steering issues which caused another stage maximum.

Phill Bayliss and Lance Murfin were in second place before Walters but several punctures blighted their round five. They still took a class win but finished well down the results on round five before salvaging 10th overall, and another class win, on round six.

Read the full article in the January issue of Overlander 4×4 –

https://shop.assignmentmedia.co.uk/issue/4×4202501

Ineos Automotive has announced that production of the Grenadier and Quartermaster will restart in early January. The lines were brought to a halt in September by what the company calls a ‘critical component shortage,’ widely believed to be linked to the insolvency of seat supplier Recaro, however this has now been resolved with all partners informed and ready to support resumption of operations at Hambach.

‘It’s great news that a solution has been found so quickly,’ says INEOS Automotive boss Lynn Calder. ‘Automotive supply chains are extremely complex but we were not willing to compromise on quality, so we are satisfi ed that we have found the best possible outcome. ‘By this summer, we had sold as many Grenadiers as we had for the whole of
2023 and are on track to have over 20,000 on the road before the end of this year.

We now turn our attention to preparing Hambach to restart in early January and with significant growth in major new
markets, including China and Mexico, and substantial expansion in the US, I believe 2025 is going to be our best year yet.

Find out more in the January issue of Overlander 4×4 –

https://shop.assignmentmedia.co.uk/issue/4×4202501

YOU MAY HAVE MISSED IT IN THE NEWS, but Ibiza has been taken over. By Defenders. By Destination Defender, to be specific.

As summer was turning into autumn, Destination Defender ‘took over the island of Ibiza with a series of activities for enthusiasts of the original British adventure brand.’ These included the opportunity to buy one, naturally – not
just any old one, but the exclusive Eivissa Edition which could only be ordered there and then, in either of the celebratory Sunrise and Noontide ‘curations.’

The Eivissa Edition is ‘a tribute to the iconic island of Ibiza.’ Which, aside from its reputation for non-stop partying, is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Land Rover made six of them, three in each form, in reference to the ancient Phoenicians who first settled on the island and to whom the number was sacred, representing their god Bes. No, not the guy from Happy Mondays.

The Noontide model is a Defender 90 which ‘embodies the freshness of daytime.’ It’s inspired by the sea and sky, along with the colour of traditionalnMediterranean buildings, which is to say it’s blue and white. The latter takes the shape of a contrast roof and matching wing vent surround, and the vehicle also has white six-spoke alloys – which are wrapped in 255/60R20 Pirelli road tyres, so a halfway sensible size by today’s standards even if the tread pattern doesn’t
scream adventure.

Read the full article in the January issue of Overlander 4×4 –

https://shop.assignmentmedia.co.uk/issue/4×4202501