October 2011 Issue of 4×4 Magazine

Back in 1948, at the Amsterdam Motor Show, the public were amazed at the new Land Rover, designed by Maurice Wilks (although perhaps ‘designed’ is the wrong term, ‘hand-built’ more appropriate). Fast forward 63 years to this year’s Frankfurt Motor Show and the world has been well, surprised, at Gerry McGovern’s design for the replacement to the Land Rover Defender. Initial promotional photographs of Land Rover’s concept DC100 (see News, page 12) released before the Show, have resulted in forums set ablaze with indignant Land Rover enthusiasts bemoaning the horror of what McGovern has dared to do with the world’s most beloved off-roader. How could they? Sacrilege! Think of the heritage!

Lost in these reactions are a couple of salient points, and to be honest, if you have been following the new models coming from Land Rover over the last few years, you have to be somewhat blinkered not to have been able to see this one coming. In today’s fi nancially restricted, global market, the present Land Rover Defender is an anachronism. You could hazard a guess that there is little, if any profit, building a present day Defender. Hoops have had to be driven through to meet the changing safety and emissions regulations, making it a basic requirement that any replacement Defender would have to be very different from the original. The present Defender is probably expensive to build, due to its ‘hand-built’ qualities. And you only have to look at the new Evoque to see that Land Rover are quite good at this. McGovern’s design team are not a bunch of crayon wielding vandals about to obliterate 60 plus years of heritage. The Evoque is undeniably Land Rover, but it’s like no other ever designed, and actually benefits from that fact.

September 2011 Issue of 4×4 Magazine

Fifteen million is the ‘official’ total number of Jeeps bought and sold from 1941 to 2011. Fingers crossed that my O level maths still holds true and that works out at an average 586 vehicles a day – give or take the odd leap year. That’s simply mind-blowing. Driving ‘Elusive Elaine’, the Willys Jeep featured in this special anniversary issue (page 46), across the sandy expanses of Slindon off-road centre near Arundel, such numbers were of no consequence as I climbed, descended and splashed effortlessly about, caring only that I could stamp hard enough on the brake pedal to stop the bloody thing. It mattered not, because even the latest, wonderful Jeep Wrangler that we had for comparison seemed to acknowledge and respectfully genuflect to this marvellous old girl, without whom, would there have been a magazine like this one, or even…. whisper it…. a Land Rover? Thanks Jeep, for 70 years of 4×4. And to all those Jeep owning readers out there, why not send in details of your Jeep for our Your 4×4 Life feature (see page 94).

August 2011 Issue of 4×4 Magazine

Understandably perhaps, if you are not directly involved, it’s a little difficult to know exactly what an editor of a motoring magazine actually does. Quite often, the first question an editor gets asked is “so what have you been driving then…?” Usually, it’s a great question, especially when asked by a fellow enthusiast who really wants to hear, and wants to develop the conversation and talk four-wheel drive. But not this month…

Asked, “what have you been driving lately?” and my answer would have been short, sharp, and admittedly, it would have been answered through clenched teeth. What have I been driving? Simple: my iMac computer.

And before anyone shouts at the page, this writer is fully aware that writing for a living beats what a lot of people have to do to earn a crust. And writing is a passion, but I have to admit that you can get a little stir-crazy stuck in front of a computer screen, especially when you are subbing and editing stories about other people driving 4x4s, often in fabulously interesting and challenging places!

July 2011 Issue of 4×4 Magazine

It doesn’t look like much. No scratch that, that’s too complimentary, it’s actually tacky, looks cheap and spends all its life hidden up in the loft. It’s actually the first time it has seen the light of day for years. I even had to clean it, and it’s also annoyingly difficult to photograph, but I wouldn’t swap it. Oh, and I am also very proud that I have got it.

My Camel Trophy, Sulawesi, “I made it” award spends its life in a box, along with my school swimming trophy, a half marathon medal and assorted awards from when I used to compete in a Caterham Seven; the trinkets and trivia of life. Mind you, that Camel Trophy event was extremely important to me and it has been great to be able to remember it this month in our regular Nostalgia series. The memories got me thinking. The whole Camel Trophy event died a slow agonising death in the end, smothered by the ‘political correctness’ of the No Smoking lobby. It’s a great shame, because it was a superb event. Can you imagine anything today that would attract over 10,000 applicants – and that’s just in the UK – and bring together off-road enthusiasts from all over the world, from Europe, North and South America, Russia and even Japan? It was a competition, and the year that I joined the British Team it was certainly competitive, but it was more than that. It was an event that allowed normal, amateur off-roaders to live the dream and drive in some fabulous places around the globe. Of course, someone had to pay for all that and the sponsorship was from a tobacco company – ironically a brand that wasn’t even for sale in the UK! – but so what? This former participant is still an ardent non-smoker, so I have never missed the fags, but you have to say that the Camel Trophy is certainly missed. And sadly, there will never be the same seen again. Great shame.

June 2011 Issue of 4×4 Magazine

It’s probably Roger Crathorne’s fault for doing such a good job instructing me in a Land Rover Ninety at Eastnor Castle. Or maybe it was the year I was lucky enough to join the British Team for the Camel Trophy in Sulawesi, Indonesia. Then again, it could have been earlier this year when our suburban Surrey road was gridlocked by sliding, wheel-spinning cars, pirouetting on the snow as I drove imperiously passed in our winter tyre-shod Rav4. Once you get the 4×4 bug, it doesn’t leave.

So, being invited to return to the Editor’s chair of this gritty, mud-loving publication was an offer that couldn’t feasibly be refused. Like that drunk that will always have just one more, the opportunity to return to the world of 4×4 merely fed my addiction; the itch that has never been successfully scratched.

As a brief resume: I was the Editor of this magazine when originally known as Off Road & 4 Wheel Driver. Never liking the ‘r’ on the end of the title, I removed it one month, much to the furious annoyance of the suits in the boardroom of the magazine’s then owners. Apparently doing such a radical thing had to be a board decision. Phah, it was always too long a title, boardroom politics or not, and 4×4 is so much better.