Bob Cooke – contributor
It looked like a pleasingly demanding trail – narrow with some steep climbs and sudden drops, and some awkward axle-twisting humps along the way, the sort of track I’d have to take with care bearing in mind that the Cherokee has limited ground clearance and nothing much in the way of underbody protection. Careful positioning of the wheels kept most of the vulnerable bits out of harm’s way as the Jeep eased over the first big bump, which was followed by a sharp rise to the right, steep and sudden enough to have the Jeep’s tow bar scraping the gravel as the nose headed skywards.
Robert Pepper 
Human beings need a certain level of stress to perform at their best. If they find a situation too difficult, needing to process too much information too quickly, demanding a level of skill and concentration beyond their abilities then fatigue and distress is the result, leading to underperformance. On the other hand, a very easy task or boring that requires little focus means boredom and complacency, leading to mistakes and again underperformance. The answer is eustress, a stress level enough to keep the human interested, engaged and in the zone of best performance.
This must be one to the most ambitious expeditions ever mounted in a pair of 1943 Jeeps. Seven intrepid souls had clubbed together to ship their Jeeps from UK to Egypt and embark on a trip that would take them from Cairo to the borders of Sudan and Libya following routes used by the legendary Long Range Desert Group in World War II
At last we have the long overdue successor to the ageing Isuzu Rodeo. The all-new D-Max, is bigger, butcher and more in line with the extremely tough competition. But can it really become the UK’s best seller? 
Ian Seabrook 
As you may recall from last month’s Our 4x4s, my ‘bargain’ Maverick has required a pretty extensive brake rebuild with new discs, pads and calipers at the front and some bleeding and adjusting at the rear. I’d hoped that this would mean healthy brakes and no more problems but within a couple of weeks, the brake pedal had gone very soft and stopping power was very much reduced. The level in the master cylinder had dropped and a glance at the rear soon showed why. A wheel cylinder was leaking and a visible trail of fluid was dropping onto the rear wheel – making a mess of the alloy’s finish as it did so.
Louise Limb – contributor
In the couple of months since my last entry, the trip to have the brakes looked at again is still very much on the ‘to do’ list (I just drive even more cautiously for now), along with servicing and a peek at the back box of the exhaust, since ‘flatulent elephant’ has now been added to the mental chart of weird noises and sensations emitting from my gently aging steed. My Grand Vitara has served me well (and is so much more solid than the two Vitaras that preceded it), with only the usual catalogue of replacements and repairs, with the addition of course of marque specific irritants like plastic door handles that snap off in your hand, weak bits of trim (for example the power socket – formerly known in the age of the Morris Minor as the cigarette lighter) shattering under normal use and that old chestnut I have now to endure, the possible corrosion of the co axial cable leading to the radio aerial.
Sue Loy 
Spent a very wet Sunday morning at our local Toyota dealer this month. Why? Well, it’s time for a change, or rather more of the same as I have decided to change the RAV4. For what, you may wonder… well, for another RAV4! Having spent the last couple of decades living with the Editor of this magazine, I do get the chance to drive an awful lot of 4x4s, so perhaps you’d think I’m not being very imaginative! It’s easy to imagine being the owner of the sumptuous, effortless, powerful, beautiful Range Rover Sport that I drove recently, and I would love one, but sadly that cannot be on the list.
Well, it sounded like a good idea at the time… Toby Savage shares the ups and downs of planning a big Desert Expedition in two genuine WW2 Jeeps. Just how do you get your off-roader into Africa if you cannot drive it there?
There was a time when the Range Rover’s crown was seriously under threat. Nigel Fryatt remembers the Mitsubishi Shogun and wonders why it never quite achieved its claim of being ‘King Off The Road”
Hils Everitt – Editor at Large
Phew…our new long-termer must have the longest ever official product name we’ve ever had. To make life easier I’ll refer to it as the ‘Tiguan’; but that’s not in any way an attempt to undermine its amazing attributes.
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