IAN GLOVER’S TEN WORST 4WDS OF ALL TIME

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Category: Reviews and Editorials

CHEVROLET K20
I always used to get a bit nervous driving Ford F-Series vehicles on multi-lane highways – the bloody things were so wide you felt that you were going to sideswipe anything even vaguely close to you. Well, the Chevy K20 was 22cm wider, and the front left hand corner was about a kilometre away from the driver’s seat. It was not a vehicle comfortable to manoeuvre in urban situations, more home on the range before farmers started putting in fences. It had a bench seat Spartans would have welcomed, steering so heavy that weightlifters would be sweating, and in corners, understeer that was positively frightening. Off-road it was a nightmare. In heavy sand, the front axle oscillated so violently that it sent shudders through the steering column. Stalling on a steep firetrail was the last thing you wanted to do (and probably would be). Think this through: it was a manual, and the only way to turn over the starter motor was to depress the clutch. But there was a foot-operated park brake which needed to be released. This was a vehicle designed for people with three legs. Oh, and the range was about 300km – just what you need in the Aussie Outback.

DAIHATSU ROCKY
I was unlucky enough to attend the launch of the Rocky (read Locky) in Japan. The slogan the Japanese had chosen for their new vehicle was ‘Wild and Mild’, which when they said it, came out as ‘Wired and Mired’, which I thought would have been much better. We first drove the Locky lound a lace test circuit, even getting to wear clash helmets(!), which seemed a little absurd given that they’d set a 100km/h speed limit, then were expected to do a loadtest over an off-road course that a 2WD bus had driven us in on. Being Aussies, of course, we deviated from the test procedures (much sucking of teeth and mutterings from the Japanese). I found a mudpatch and had a ball chucking the Locky through it, with a Japanese engineer in the back seat hyperventilating. When I returned to the start point, he stormed out of the car, saying “You Australians f...ing mad!” I was initially impressed by the Rocky, but when I got back to test it against the target vehicle – the Mitsubishi Pajero – found it seriously lacking on home turf. Later we heard rumours that its USP (Unique Selling Point) – a three way adjustable shock setup - proved prone to failure, but Daihatsu of course denied this. It died, Pajero survived.

FORD BRONCO
Glovebox just big enough to hold a box of matches, bonnet release so stiff that required a winch cable to work, the Ford Bronco really was something else. Admittedly, its 5.8 litre V8 made short work of long highway hauls, but you paid for it with a fuel consumption figure of 17.5L/100km. It was in the rough that some really bad points emerged. Trying to see where the track was proved impossible because the bonnet was as long as a full-size billiard table, and the fact that the vehicle was as wide as a block of flats meant that paintwork was inevitably scratched on firetrails. LSDs front and rear meant that the Bronco auto could climb anything, but going downhill was a different story, as we found out eighteen kilometres into a State Forest near Mullumbimby. On any descent steeper than the Nullarbor, you had to stand on the brakes to prevent running away downhill. Accelerating away after one descent, loud bang, rear wheel lockup, abrupt stop. Inspection proved a bolt had sheared in the backing plate to the wheel cylinder driver’s side rear and the wheel cylinder had been sucked into the brake drum. That’s what minimal clearance between shoes and drums can do – fine at highway speeds with all that cool air rushing past, but not with heavy brake usage and crawl speed. The whole system had overheated, brake fluid boiled, exit wheel cylinder. Getting it out really was slow work. With no tool kit provided in the test vehicle, all we could do was stop at every creek and splash water on the wheel to cool it. We even tried urinating on it, which was probably the best bit of the whole schmozzle.

JEEP CHEROKEE CIRCA 1981
With styling straight out of the ‘50s, Jeep’s early ‘80s Cherokee was outdated in a lot of ways. It had great airconditioning, but the fuses kept blowing. Good thing the smoker was there to continually provide bits of silver paper out of his packets. All show and blow, it had a great interior, but the seats developed a very irritating vibration. No rear washer/wiper, no intermittent wiper mode, no rake adjust on those damn seats, and a foot-operated parking brake. And it wasn’t designed for off-road, with very vulnerable door sills made even more at risk with a soft, wallowing suspension, and a bonnet to rival the Bronco’s. But it wasn’t any good on dirt roads either. Hit a large bump and suddenly you were sideways staring at the scrub coming up very quickly, and over-assisted power steering always meant that correction entailed a good deal of fishtailing a long way down the road. And on one particular test, it developed a leak in the transfer case, the radiator fan began hitting the cowling, which had to be relocated, terrible squeaks grew and grew in the pulley belts, the power steering pump leaked profusely, the battery boiled over and those bloody fuses kept blowing!

JEEP CJ8
Herein lies a tale. Back in the 80s, I was the proud owner – yes, owner, vehicle bought with my own money – of a Toyota Series 60 diesel. I loved that car; by the day’s standards, comfortable to drive on long trips, very capable off-road, nice big cargo area. In 1984, Jeep was keen to break back into the Australian 4WD scene after an absence of a few years, had set up an assembly plant in Brisbane, and wanted to give the magazine I was editing a new CJ8. It was to become my company car. No sense in having two bloody great 4WDs clogging up the driveway: I’ll sell the Cruiser. Mistake! Where I could get from Sydney to the family farm at Gulgong and back to Sydney on just over half a tank of fuel, with the Jeep, I had to find a bowser halfway there and halfway back. In my initial report on the CJ, I mentioned a few ‘teething problems’. I should have added ‘on a Tyrannosaurus Rex’. The most dangerous was an accelerator that periodically just stuck to the floor…had to prised back with your right foot while your left foot was usually jammed on the brake to prevent ramming someone. The air pump on the pollution control gear started miaowing like a cat; sounded great with the diff growl and the transmission whine. It was like driving an avant-garde symphony orchestra to a concert. The fuel pump went, and soon after that, so did I, noticing that the chassis was developing a marked resemblance to a banana. Jeep’s got some great product now, but there’s still the occasional blunder. Ever been for a spin in a Jeep Cherokee of four or five years ago? The windscreen was so small it was like driving a letterbox.

LADA NIVA
You just knew the Lada had to be in here, right? The Lada’s problem was that it tried to be all things to all men and ended up being nothing for no-one. Cabin noise was deafening thanks to the high-revving bored-out Fiat engine and a complete lack of sound-deadening material. It had a fuel gauge that must have been invented by Monty Python; every time you turned a corner, it’d go from three quarters full to empty, and the fuel warning light would come on in agreement. It had fixed rear windows and no airconditioning, and a fan that sounded like wired mice running on a treadmill, even on the ‘low’ setting. The layout of the foot pedals was diabolical. The accelerator was high enough to be a hand throttle, which meant your foot was bent backwards at 45° to your leg – fantastic on long trips! It was also extremely close to the brake pedal, a matter of grave (yours) concern. Replacing a fan belt (after the original had ripped itself to shreds on a piece of metal sitting proud on the alternator) took one and a half hours; the engine bay was an obsessive compulsive’s worst nightmare. The wing mirrors were about the size of a cigarette packet – obviously designed in Lilliput for Noddy’s car. It did have some nice touches not found on other 4WDs of the time – like headlight wipers. Pity the activator switch popped out of the dash as we went up a firetrail. Photographic fashion at that time was to lay the front seats as far back as you could to take shots of vehicle interiors. The Lada driver seatback was laboriously lowered via a knurled knob…back , back…and then fell into the rear passenger footwell, proving impossible to reconnect with the squab. That made for a nice, safe drive home. But my favourite memory of Ladas comes from one of the Safaris I competed in (with then Australian Off-Road Racing Champion Les Sivior, in a Nissan Patrol), when the Russian support crews gently pushed their vehicles onto their sides to work on suspensions. Beats a portable hoist I guess!

LAND ROVER 4CYL DIESEL
Off-road, this was a weapon, with a great suspension and a really torquey motor, low gearing and a very low low-low ratio. On-road, it was a disaster, particularly on long trips – all torque and no action. It screamed in agony at full throttle, and when you looked at the speedo, you found you were going just 80km/h. Apparently this was because in the land of manufacture, the UK, to get a preferential commercial vehicle tax rate, the law demanded a top of 50 miles an hour. So, at 80 kays, the governor took over. I drove one from Sydney to 100 kilometres beyond Bourke once, with a photographer who thought he was getting a cold so was chewing garlic pills without pause, in the middle of summer, with no airconditioning. I can still recall the smell of garlic and BO; not a good mix.Not surprisingly, the trip took all day, no talk was possible because of the engine noise, and I was constantly worried because the temperature gauge needle hovered just under the red bit. (Only later did I find out that the engine ran hot; this was normal.) The vehicle was fine once we were up there, but boy, did I dread the thought of the return journey!

MAHINDRA
Another surety to be in here, the first Mahindra in this country was a victim not so much of its design and construction, but of the Australian importer’s marketing plan. WA retired farmer and businessman Alan Baker discovered the Mahindra – a CJ3 Jeep built under licence - while on a trip to India. He’d been looking for a vehicle that went back to basics for rural use; great off-road ability, simple to service, reliable and most of all cheap. The Mahindra was all that, and had more PTOs than you could poke a boom sprayer at. Just what anyone on the land would want. But somewhere between the original intention and the launch here, something went horribly wrong. The importers imagined they could take on the likes of Nissan and Toyota in the recreational market with a vehicle that was basically a tractor with extra seats, despite advice to the contrary from their local 4WD consultant (yours truly). The launch was a disaster. Held on a rural property on the NSW Central Coast on a day straight out of Cyclone Tracy, winds howled, rain shot out of black skies like .50 cal bullets, rag-tops leaked like colanders, doors flew open on bumps, people were bogged, someone hit a fence… The press reaction was predictable. One magazine even used the heading ‘Back Passage to India’ for its write-up. Pity. This could have been a great thing if suitability for purpose had been kept fairly in mind. No surprise that the original Mahindra went down in a screaming heap (like most of the automotive journalists that day).

RANGE ROVER VM DIESEL
Back in the’80s, there were no Audi Q8s, no Porsche Cayennes, no Volkswagen Touaregs; if you wanted a luxury 4WD, there was Range Rover. While automotive journalists praised the supple ride, level of appointment and four-wheel drive ability, they also criticised the Rangie’s lack of reliability, poor electrics and price, quoted mechanic mates who said they were a nightmare to work on (which was often) and in general inferred that while they were a nice test car, you’d be mad to buy one. (Strange after all that, that quite a few motor noters did. Second hand, of course.) The ‘80s were the era of the Luxury Car Tax, and saw automotive companies struggling like crazy to bring in models that could be sold profitably under the LCT price threshold. Jaguar-Rover Australia managed with a stripped-out Rangie, manual-only, powered by an Italian-made VM marine diesel (2.5 litres from memory), and were keen to get me to buy one. “I’ll give it to you at a very competitive price,” said JRA PR John Crawford as I picked up the test car. “VERY competitive.” I must admit, I was tempted. That beautiful ride, the comfort levels… a bit slow off the mark, but once you got it going, up there with the best of them. And it was a Range Rover, with all the cachet the name brought with it. I stopped at a set of traffic lights going up a very steep hill. A bloke was mowing his nature strip beside me. The lights turned green, I floored the accelerator and as the man pushing the mower pulled away from me I thought ‘No way I’m buying this – not in a million years,’ which was probably what it was going to take me to get to the top of the hill.

TOYOTA BUNDERA
What?! A Toyota in this list? You betcha. It was the mid-eighties Toyota Bundera, which quickly became known as the ‘Blundera’; an absolute shocker. It was a SWB, looked good, was well-appointed, but lacked any kind of suspension at all. As I wrote at the time: ‘A vehicle which I would never, in any circumstances, consider owning…it’s not outstanding as a recreational vehicle, it does not ride well on the open highway and it does not feel at all comfortable in the rough…it’s as though the engineers have thrown a whole bag of bits at a PR agency with instructions to make a perfect 4WD…the engine is hopelessly down on power for the weight of the vehicle, but any discussion of top speed is academic because the suspension bump-steers so much that only someone with a death wish would go flat out in it’. At one stage, Toyota was offering a free trip to Singapore to anyone who’d buy one, but even that couldn’t seduce buyers. It wasn’t on the market for long.

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LADA NIVA(OS Version)