Innehållsförteckning för August 2022 från NZ4WD

NEWS GMSV has revealed details of the 2023 Silverado model range updates and enhancements which will feature on the new Model Year 2023 Silverado 1500, including the addition of a new flagship Silverado model. The off-road-leaning LT Trail Boss model will be discontinued with a new model dropping in its place to complement the popular LTZ Premium. Chevrolet's new flagship off-road truck, the Silverado 1500 ZR2 will maintain the breadth of the Australasian range. It is the next chapter in off-roading, and it's coming to Australia and New Zealand GMSV says the ZR2 model delivers next-level off-road capability right from the factory and features front and rear e-lockers and Multimatic DSSV dampers. Adding to its off-road credibility are 33-inch mud-terrain tyres and a new high-approach steel cut front bumper designed…

Fans of the online game and movie Halo will instantly recognise the M12 Force Application Light Reconnaissance Vehicle, otherwise known as the Warthog. Ten years ago or more, Weta Workshops brought its version of the Halo Warthog to Manukau for an off-road event. Based on a Nissan Patrol chassis, it had the look of the version created online for the Halo game franchise. There was no chance of a drive though: it was only in Manukau for display purposes. A range of companies have since created Warthog tribute vehicles, but none as extreme as the 745kW (1000bhp) Hoonigan version shown to the world last year. The crew at Hoonigan partnered with Microsoft to create a working replica of the troop carrier to celebrate the launch of Halo Infinite. Microsoft wanted…

Hands up all those who remember – or desire – the original FJ and BJ40 Land Cruisers? Those 4WDs worked hard and helped open up New Zealand to modern farming practices – and of course to 4WD recreation. More recently the original ‘40’ was also the inspiration for the limited-run ‘tribute’ Toyota FJ. Now Toyota has revealed the Compact Cruiser concept, and it shows off every inch of a lineage that stretches back to the 1970s Cruisers. It will apparently lead to a productionised version with an electric drivetrain. Plenty of automakers including as Rivian with its new R1S SUV and R1T pickup truck, and GNMC with the Hummer are proving that electrics are very capable off-road, so there is little to suggest the Toyota will be any less capable.…

14 AUGUST Kids go racing Young Guns raceday. Kiwitruck sprint races and half-hour ‘Super-enduro’. Free entry for racers thanks to Tim McKay at Truck Fix. Spectator admission by gold coin donation for the kids. Contact Gary Baker on 021 304 864, 28 AUGUST Off Road Racing National Championship Round 6 hosted by Waikato Offroad Racing Club at TECT Park. Short Course. www.oranz.co.nz 9-10 SEPTEMBER Mainland Winch Challenge Alexandra hosted by Shotover Club on Central Otago grounds. For an entry form, email: mainlandwinching@gmail.com 16-18 SEPTEMBER Battle in the Bay Ultra4 New Zealand race at Te Matai Motorsport TECT Park, Tauranga Bay of Plenty. The course this year is going to be a good time, technical with fast areas and some winching may be involved. There will be a winch challenge class.…

MY 4WD Terry Austin had been looking for something to replace his elderly and well-travelled 4WD ute. He was looking to switch out to petrol, and to have a vehicle he could use for adventure and overlanding. He was likewise was lucky enough to be able to dedicate a vehicle to the fun drives, and lucky enough to find a wee gem of a ‘shorty’ Pajero. Terry takes up the story: I had been looking around to replace my old diesel 4WD and spied a low mileage 2007 Mitsubishi Pajero NS petrol 3.0 litre. Some might wonder why I would go to petrol? Well having owned a couple of diesel 4WDs for 15 years, I was tired of the extra maintenance required so decided to hunt out a petrol 4WD…

OUTDOOR LIVING Camping and exploring New Zealand's great outdoors is a passion for many 4WDers. But what happens when the appeal of roof-top campers or tents has worn off or when the family has grown. Is a caravan the way to go? And how easy will it be to find one that really can go off-road? A caravan may have that outdoorsy tough-as-nails look but could it really go overlanding down south, or around the North Island's central volcanic plateau? Will its suspension, chassis, bodywork and fit-out deal with the inevitable knocks and scrapes? Off road Caravans NZ has the answer, in the Canyon range of off-road-capable single and dual axle wheel caravans. Canyon's ‘vans’ are fully designed and built in Australia and are based on a powder-coated 150mm chassis.…

4WD SUSPENSION UPGRADES Terrain Tamer now offers Gross Vehicle Mass (GVM) upgrade kits with parabolic leaf springs for the Ford Ranger, Toyota Hilux (GUN/KUN 125/126) and Land Cruiser (VDJ78/79) models, adding to the already existing range of regular GVM upgrade kits already on offer. The GVM is a rating set by the original manufacturer, and refers to the legal maximum weight of the vehicle. This rating incorporates the wheels and the vehicle itself, as well as everything sitting atop. Built into the GVM is also the imparted tow ball mass when towing, and rated axle capacity, a limit set for how much load capacity should be distributed to each axle. Adding anywhere from 180kg to 480kg to the original GVM, depending on the vehicle, the Terrain Tamer Parabolic GVM upgrade…

TECH TALK What's the best suspension for off-roading? For club trials? For competition? For trips to the supermarket? It turns out there are as many answers to the question as there are ways to enjoy a 4WD. Vehicle manufacturers have specified ‘generalist’ shock absorbers and springs for their 4WD offerings ever since there have been 4WDs. But keeping in mind we all use our 4WDs for different purposes, it makes sense to have some insight into making our vehicles ‘fit for purpose’. More specialised shock absorbers and even springs are an easy upgrade, though it is important to understand the system already in the vehicles and to take advice from suspension experts. The common factors are the brand names behind the ‘eye-candy’ components. Fox, Kings, Bilstein and more have become…

4WD Sport It's a one-day off-road racing spectacular that will attract the fastest drivers in the sport, a defiant ‘salute’ to the Covid lockdowns that have held New Zealand in suspended animation for two years. The 2022 New Zealand Offroad Grand Prix evokes a series of similar events held on the old Grand Prix course at Te Atatu, over the hill from the long defunct Footrot Flats theme park. Organisers say the inspiration for the new event is drawn from the runaway success of the original 1990s version and also from the events organised last century in the USA by the originator of stadium short course racing, Mickey Thompson. It will be held on the edge of the biggest population centre in New Zealand at Counties-Manukau club's purposedesigned stadium track…

Dunedin racer Emma Gilmour is back in Europe and back in action, contesting the second full season of the Extreme E offroad vehicle race series. She jumped on a plane immediately after the New Zealand Rally Championship's Rally Whangarei to head north for her high profile off-road racing drive. Along the way she has been busy with PR engagements for the team, including running the Extreme E offroader and an original Gulf-liveried McLaren F1 race car at the Goodwood Festival of Speed and driving McLaren Artura supercars at the Formula 1 British Grand Prix. It's a tough life for a race driver.…

Apart from being allowed to drive on a few Department of Conservation roads and to use the general roading network that includes unformed legal roads, which is not a unique opportunity, but one extended to the wider public, no funding is allocated to 4WD recreation.” Winter is showing its colours and the ground in most places is as sodden as usual for the time of year. That doesn't seem to be any deterrent to a proportion of the four-wheeling community as they wheel spin, slip and slide through mud wherever they can find the stuff. It is hard to tell if the high fuel prices have reduced the distances travelled by many to find mud, although it is evident that among members of ‘organised’ 4WD clubs, there is certainly consideration…

Two months ago, Wainui off-roader Joel Giddy was good enough to give NZ4WD a good look around Ram's finest: the first Hellcat-engined TRX down under. He used his Ram TRX to bring his race trucks down to Manukau from his home base north of Auckland. The 523kW truck was parked in a line-up of Ram and Chevy Silverado haulers and a few more mundane offerings, making the latter look like puppies alongside the ‘big dog’. The TRX didn't arrive through official channels, which made it all the more intriguing. Now, Aussie's all excited about finally getting the Ram TRX. “The TRX sets new benchmarks for extreme performance trucks,” according to Neville Crichton, chairman of the Ateco Group, owners of Ram Trucks Australia. Across the ditch, Ram has gone from zero…

There are many New Zealanders working in the health industry to improve the mental health of New Zealanders. Alongside the professionals, people like Sir John Kirwan are working just as hard to help Kiwis. In July, All Blacks legend Sir John partnered with Land Rover on a landmark drive across the country to raise awareness for mental health, aiming to raise funds for his charitable initiative Mitey, which targets more than 11,000 children in 40 schools. Sir John hosted community events from Auckland to Invercargill and drove his own Land Rover on the trip. Up to 75 per cent of New Zealanders believe this generation of children are at greater risk of mental health issues than generations before them.…

Everyone's doing it: now there's a six-wheeled Ford Bronco. At first glance it could almost be a clever Photoshop/CGI image, but it's real. From the file of ‘4WDs we cannot have’ comes this six-wheeled variant of Ford's much-anticipated Bronco. The Bronco is based on the next-gen Ranger, as is this coversion, but currently there are no plans for the Bronco to come down under, nor is there a prospect of these headturning aftermarket beasts coming. This one, offered in the USA, comes courtesy of conversion specialists Maxlider Brothers Customs. The ‘Midnight’ (sorry, ‘Midnite’) six-wheeler goes on sale late this year and will be priced from USD$399,000. That narrows down the buyer pool a bit – the stock four wheeled version is for sale for just US$29,995. So buyers will pay…

Australasia's independent voice on vehicle safety ANCAP Safety has announced a four-star ANCAP safety rating for the Hyundai Palisade. This rating applies to all diesel Palisade LX2 models sold in Australia and New Zealand from November 2020. The Hyundai Palisade arrived in the Australasian market in late 2020 and achieved scores of 79 per cent for adult occupant protection, 88 per cent for child occupant protection, 63 per cent for vulnerable road user protection and 63 per cent in the area of safety assist. These scores limited its ability to reach five-stars. “The Hyundai Palisade fell short in two of the four key areas of assessment which unfortunately has seen it unable to meet the top level of safety that families and fleets have come to expect,” said ANCAP Chief…

TESTED This thing is slathered in safety and infotainment/communications tech. The superlatives continue: it has the best (simplest, fastest) phone sync of any vehicle we have tested this year; it is the first to feature an embedded McIntosh premium stereo (with quite a few speakers and an enormously powerful amplifier); and as far as can be determined it is the first vehicle to be offered in New Zealand with a night-vision camera built in. In fact, there are cameras hidden everywhere – under the side mirrors, in the shark-fin antenna, eyeballing the rear seat passengers and out the rear. Many of them have washer nozzles too – handy on cold mornings or after a long run on a muddy road. The drivetrains are identical: Pentastar V6 petrol engine, eight speed…

4WD SUSPENSION UPGRADES Dollar for dollar a suspension upgrade can create the most impressive change in the performance of a 4WD. The choice is vast – replacement OEM-spec struts, coil springs, leaf springs and shock absorbers, suspension bushes, heavy duty aftermarket suspension arms – the only real limit is budget. Last month's My 4WD feature on Sean Goddard's mighty Surf (pictured) demonstrates how far any 4WD owner can take the suspension upgrade process. A word of caution: while extreme builds look great and enhance off-road capability, the vehicle is still subject to laws regarding such mods if it is to be driven on New Zealand roads. It pays to be working with one eye on those laws and rules and keep up to date with low volume vehicle rules as…

The team at Ironman 4X4 have earned the title of “suspension specialists” with more than 50 years of experience in building suspension components for the Australian market. They are well qualified to provide the best advice when choosing suspension components to upgrade a vehicle. Suspension Suspension is not something people often see when they first look at a vehicle. But when it's needed, suspension is a critical upgrade, the single most important change made to a vehicle. Original Equipment suspension is set up to support vehicles for on-road conditions with a reasonable amount of weight. When owners start to add vehicle accessories, attach a trailer or caravan, and increase payload, the way the suspension handles the load changes. Couple that with uneven surfaces and off-road conditions and the OEM suspension…

Adventure NZ Kevin Isemonger was keen for some off-roading after being stuck in Auckland by Covid lockdowns that seemed endless. He jumped at the chance to go driving on tracks not usually open to the public in the Ararimu area and joined 90 other keen 4WDers on the 2022 Ararimu 4WD Safari. An email pops up on my screen from the Manukau Four Wheel Drive Club (of which I was a member back pre-kid days) asking if I wanted to come and play in the wilds of Ararimu. In a postapocalyptic Covid detained Auckland I said: “Hell, yeah.” Giant leap to the keyboard – filled out the forms and bought a ticket for the ride and within a few seconds I was hooked and booked. I then set about helping…

Off-road racers know the future of the sport rests with the next generation. That is true of every sport. A decade ago, Auckland racer Richard Crabb and a group of helpers got together to set up a youth category. Starting with tiny Chinesesourced ‘fun buggies’ – pull-start engines, simple transmissions – the hard core of this group got a ‘pathfinder’ group of children up and running to demonstrate the viability of the new class. Previously, the sport had languished with a handful of new racers coming in as teenagers. The new class ran at main events – but on a separately plotted ‘gentle’ course. Once parents saw the fun the young racers were having a steady stream were on board and the next step was to introduce the first of…

“Gidday, I'm Lance Leadfoot. You may know me from my Youtube videos ‘I fought the tree and the tree won’ and ‘Smokin’ – the story of an elderly dak-dak and its number one fan’. I'm here to offer you the chance to bestow several thousand dollars on my racing obsession.” Not everyone has sponsors walk into their workshop and ask to get on board. Multiple champion Tony McCall does. That's how it starts. Then there's the “as an added bonus, if you give me money I'll go away.” There aren't many in the sport who have proper sponsors. Even fewer who actually look after their racer-sponsor relationship. So we're coming out of Covid and sponsors are no longer battering down the door looking for racers to throw dosh at. How…

Our Favourite Things column this month extends an invitation to our loyal columnists to show us their favourites. First up, Geoffzone writer Geoff Anders talks torches and wheelstands. A trick I learnt at MI6 “This little CREE LED torch is always in my pocket along with a multitool. I use it so often. It runs on one AA battery with a continuous runtime of a couple of hours. In reality that lasts about a month as it's usually only on for a few seconds. I work with a lot of small items – tiny screws, electronic and mechanical bits, vehicle parts. Drop something, can't see it? Lay torch on floor and look for shadows! Can't see into that dark corner? The lens moves for beam change, it'll do a spot…

Parents, don't let your children try this – it may well count as cruel and unusual punishment. NZ4WD recently profiled Joel Giddy's awesome private-import Ram TRX ‘Hellcat’. It's his ‘enjoy’ truck, 523kW of on-road fun, the first and most likely still the only such truck in this country. It has already been off-road, but only into the grassy paddock at the Counties Manukau Offroad Racing Club's stadium track at Colin Dale Park. Ram has taken things a step further in the USA, announcing a special edition called Sandblast and letting rally/drift/rallycross star Ken Block loose in it. American showman Block has posted a teaser video to his social media channels previewing a new Ram spec apparently built off the Ram TRX ‘Hellcat’. The brief black-and-white video shows a nostrilgrilled Ram…

Cat thefts have hit the headlines in New Zealand. Not the furry night-marauders though, these are the expensive sort sitting under our vehicles. Private motorists who park their cars in places where they are accessible are waking up to find their exhaust systems chopped open, cat heat sensor wires stripped away and the catalytic converter itself gone. Worse, in some cases modern cars and 4WDs have two or even three cats. The motivation: cats are worth money at scrap dealers. Their rare metals – palladium, rhodium, and platinum – can be extracted and re-used. Replacement costs spiral upward of $2000 per cat very quickly. In Auckland in June, thieves were hitting second-hand car yards, taking ten or more cats at a time. Even though a second-hand cat fetches less, that…

The Subaru Solterra's name is created by combining the Latin words for ‘sun’ and ‘earth’. It's the Japanese company's first big move into straight-out battery electric vehicles, and it signals Subaru's drive toward a wider electrified model range. Built on the new, all-electric e-Subaru Global Platform, the Solterra SUV EV was launched to New Zealand media at an event on Waiheke Island in early July. Subaru says it carries across the latest versions of the company's All-Wheel Drive (AWD), active safety technology, adventure capabilities and durable, reliable engineering. The Solterra has the same capability in any conditions, and on the same terrain as all other Subarus courtesy of the X-Mode AWD control system. The new Grip Control function enables the Solterra to run at a constant speed while stabilising the…

Anyone who has seen the classic 1973 movie American Graffiti will recognise the wee ‘32 Deuce Coupe hot road below. Truth is, the American-built tribute at right is not a hot rod. Nor does it have a (real) V8 under the hood, or anywhere else. The ‘Rugged ‘32’ takes inspiration from the silver screen. Though it looks like the ‘32 Ford Coupe that starred in that movie, this one is all Polaris UTV offroader underneath. It's been lengthened 300mm and given a six-point roll cage, fire suppression system, and many other upgrades. Up front there is a fake small-block V8 that houses the fuel tank. The actual engine is still the Polaris one litre unit, with an aftermarket turbo conversion. It was built for Rugged Radios president Greg Cottrell. “I've…

It began with a push to create a more spacious off-road vehicle, one that would attract a younger audience to the Jeep brand. The original Jeep Cherokee quickly spawned a bigger, more luxurious 4WD known as the Grand. The rest, as they say, is history. First generation (ZJ, 1993) The original Grand Cherokee was launched in 1992 as a luxury SUV. The base model had full instrumentation, cloth interior, and a standard five-speed manual transmission. Other features included a driverside airbag and four-wheel anti-lock braking system (ABS). When it was first introduced the Grand Cherokee only had one powertrain choice: a 4.0-litre straight six engine that traced its lineage back to the similar engines in the Chrysler Valiants of the 1970s. A 5.2-litre V8 arrived soon afterward, and in 1998…

Event It wasn't the best weather, but passionate fans of the mighty Toyota Land Cruiser still turned out in their hundreds for the annual ‘Cruising West’ at Waimauku. They came from all points of the compass to see – and chat about – Land Cruisers dating right back into the early 1970s, including the restored FJ40 featured in NZ4WD back in May. Equally, more modern 70-series and full SUV Land Cruisers were being closely examined. Many of the tougher trucks were local, prompting a thought that the west may well be home to the largest population of Land Cruisers in the country. Every Cruiser in the show paid a $5 donation to score a display spot with the money going toward the work of the Sustainable Coastlines charity. Long wheelbase,…

The popularity of utes in this country is news to no one but enhancing those vehicles by raising the height and improving the ride is becoming more popular as a means of increasing their ‘utility’ factor. Tradies, farmers and recreational 4WDers are looking for lift kits to give additional ground clearance to avoid hazards or carry greater loads. Now, mainstream owners are also upgrading to provide those same features, with the added benefits of greater handling and increased visibility. Leading steering and suspension specialist Autolign introduced the Lift Junkie range of suspension kits a few years ago to tap into this evolving trend and broaden the range of options and quality offered by these bolt-on packages. Each set includes heavy duty uprated coil and leaf springs from world-leading manufacturers, designed…

Welcome to winter. Mucky roads, muddy adventures. Many 4WD owners understand the benefits of a thorough clean and refurbish before summer arrives and the warm weather drags us all away to remote places. Oil, filters, a good clean of the chassis and suspension – 4WDs are the last bastion of DIY vehicle maintenance. Plenty of owners just love doing the basics themselves. It's a chance to retire to the man-cave (garage to mere humans) and potter about getting good honest filth under our fingernails. But while we're zooming around the garage floor on that cool trolley we got for Christmas, poking here and looking there, how many of us pay attention to the many small items that protect components and occupants from impacts and vibration though? The Mount Shop's Hemi…

WEEKEND DRIVE For the third year in a row, David Coxon's holiday drive continues to explore the tourism'jewels’ of the Mainland. So far on this trip, we have travelled from Picton down towards Christchurch and over Arthurs Pass to the West Coast, then all the way down to Jackson Bay before crossing back over Haast Pass and exploring the Wanaka area. Now, our travelling companions Ashley and Gillian needed to be back home at short notice and managed to book a ferry for three days’ time. It was at the Omarama Top 10 campground on our way back north that we finally managed to get adequate internet and discovered that the first sailing we could get was over a week later. Rather than worrying about the impact of this delay…

4WD Sport The unlimited class for 4WD and RWD trucks in Kiwi offroad racing is changing fast. New American trucks are now beginning to dominate the grids, others are being sold and traded, and the roll-out of NZ-built ProLite and other designs continues at pace. Craig Carlyle transformed an American-built ProLite singleseater truck with a meticulous build capped by a “MoT” colour scheme and this year has passed the driving duties of the truck to son Ash. It now runs in a ‘stars and stripes’ colour scheme. Whakatane's Mal Langley has sold his mighty ‘Big Yellow’ class 8 and it has done its first enduro at Woodhill in the (probably slightly nervous) hands of Arlene Frost. A superbly finished 4WD truck that made its debut in 2017, it runs imported…

We all know the importance of our vehicle battery. Run it down when camping and it won't start the engine, use a winch too long, same result… oops! There's lots of info about batteries, winches, fridges, capacity etc. It can be very confusing for a non-electrician. Vehicle batteries have five ratings: • Voltage: Usually 12Volts, the nominal rating of the vehicle's electrical system. This is the pressure to move the electrical energy. When the engine is running this should rise to the charging voltage of about 14V. Below 12V is bad for the battery. • Ah: Ampere hours. Amps multiplied by time, i.e. 50Ah = 50 amps for an hour or 1 amp for 50hrs, after which it will be ‘flat’ and may not start an engine. the amount of…

It sits out in the open, usually unprotected from the elements, rarely given a second thought until we really need to use it to get out of a spot of bother, and it doesn't work. I am of course referring to the electric winch usually mounted on the front of your 4WD, and wonder when was the last time, if ever, you gave it a little attention and maintenance. Depending on the brand of winch you've got, your manual may say anything from ‘perform winch maintenance every month’ to ‘the winch is completely sealed and never needs to be maintained’. Of course only one of these is correct. Even the most trusted and most expensive winches in the world absolutely suggest you perform maintenance on them at least after each…