We love hearing stories about how the JK is changing Aussies attitudes to Jeeps, but its even better when its one thats been pimped by us! I will let @troyhouse explain from his recent photo shoot in the current edition of Australian 4WD Action magazine! G-day Bill hows things ! If you happen to grab a copy of 4wd action magazine issue 221, my JK is in the custom truck segment. Recently I did a weekend with the 4wd action guys at landcruiser mountain park. The feature was best touring mods, they requested approximately 25 vehicles which met a certain criteria. I was the only jeep driver, so you could imagine the comments i received he bought a jeep ya gunner need a bigger boat etc etc At the start of the trip everyone was bagging the jeep and its reliability on the tracks, I stayed quite and let the jeep do the talking. They split all the trucks into groups pertaining to there capabilities off-road. (Lift, tyre size, lockers ect ) I was put into the hardest group with all the other extremely modded trucks. As we head off, I was tail end Charlie for our group, slightly excited and nervous on how the jeep would go against these other trucks. When we approached our first obstacle I sat and watched the other trucks get some extreme angles, lift wheels off the ground, lose traction and a few have to winch. wow I thought to myself, that track must be a lot harder then it looks as I approached I used my expert driving technique (point and shoot) and the jeep cruised up the obstacle like it wasnt there. Maybe I got lucky I thought ? As we approached the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th obstacle the same thing, the tracks werent hard at all, the other trucks just made them look that way. Shortly after, a Toyota broke a steering arm, and we needed to stop while some good bush mechanics was used to fix it enough for him to get back to camp. Then obstacle after obstacle I waited and watched as other trucks needed to be winched up tracks, or rocks placed down in ruts so they could proceed. I was starting to get board constantly waiting for the other trucks. On the second day, we did a photo shoot of the jeep, and you could see the 4wd action guys coming around to the idear of a jeep, most of them only thought of a jeep as a weekend play toy car, not suitable for real touring, however I had my rooftop tent on, 60 liters of extra fuel on the gobi stealth roof rack, fridge, dual batteries and enough gear to live out of the jeep for weeks completely self sufficient while others retreated back to there camper trailers at night. The next day our group had dwindled down to about 4 trucks tackling the harder tracks on landcruiser mountain park, the more and more tracks we did the more confident I got with the jeep against other trucks. At the end of the day we approached the notorious camp road, ( a very decent track at landcruiser mountain park, responsible for a lot of YouTube videos and panel damage. Out of the four trucks two trucks opted not to give it ago, leaving only the jeep and an extremely modified Toyota hilux which resembled more of a comp truck then a tourer, the hilux had undergone a live axle conversion and did not even have a sway bar front or rear. I must admit the hilux did tackle the track well, so I knew I defiantly had to give camp road a crack for the sake of all jeeps and our reputation. So with roof top tent on, 60 liters of fuel on the roof, sway bar disconnected and rear locker on, I then point and shoot and drove straight up camp hill without any worries at all, (bam bam was in the car and did get flung around a bit. But his used to that. So to wrap it up, it was a good weekend away with the guys which defiantly silenced a few critics, and opened others minds about the idea of a jeep. It defiantly gave me a lot more confidence in the jeep against other trucks out there. So hopefully now jeeps start getting more of the wrap they deserve as a capable off-road truck and a tourer in magazines like 4wd action. Cheers Troy !
Posted on: Sun, 31 Aug 2014 08:10:00 +0000
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