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Touring 4X4: 80 Series

Some things just get better with age   WORDS BY DAN EVERETT IMAGES BY WARREN PILTON  Do enough laps around the sun and it starts becoming painfully obvious our slow descent into a throwaway society. The march for more is never-ending. Each year new models of everything vie for our attention. More bells. More whistles. More finance. The ad campaigns trying to convince us we couldn’t possibly do something without the latest and greatest technology, even if we’ve been doing just fine without it for the last 20 years.   Some things don’t need to be updated though. Some things are built to stand the test of time. Some things are worth keeping for life.   For West Australian native Warren Pilton, his 80 Series LandCruiser is a forever kind of deal. He’s owned it most of his life, and no amount of gadgets or gizmos could ever catch his attention.   Three decades ago, Warren was learning his trade down in Perth. An apprentice Master Tech and Auto Electrician in a Toyota dealership he spent his days doing pre-delivery inspections for lucky new 80 Series LandCruiser owners. Daydreaming on his smoko breaks with the other apprentices, promising them one day he’d own one. A few years later, working in the Kalgoorlie mines he’d saved his pennies and bought himself a 3-year-old 1994 LandCruiser.…

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1966 Bronco Off Road cropped
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Ford Bronco: Pony up

Ford didn’t invent the 4WD but they certainly took it to a new level with the introduction of the Bronco. Its history is facinating. Over 100 years ago Henry Ford revolutionised the automobile, forever changing the world as we know it. While some may argue it wasn’t exactly a positive thing, it’s hard to argue his introduction of the production line directly led to affordable cars for the masses but there’s one quote from the man who revolutionized the world that we can’t help but find ironic so many years later. “If I had asked the public what they wanted, they’d have told me faster horses.” A century later and two of the blue oval’s most successful cars of all time are directly named after horses. The Mustang, and more interestingly for four-wheel-drivers, the Bronco. Of course, there was the Pinto as well, but we did say only two were successful.   With the Bronco recently re-released after a huge 25-year hiatus we thought it was high time to have a look at where the bucking bronco originated, and how it got to where it is today.   The Path to Glory   While Jeep has built a brand around the WW2 Willy’s GPs the reality is far more complicated. Willys-Overland and the American Bantam Car Company were first to tender for the…

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electric 4x4 Vivian
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Why Electric Vehicle (EV) 4X4s are and are not our future

The electric vehicle revolution is well and truly upon us…or is it? The statistics don’t lie. The electric vehicle share of the market in 2020 was around 0.78%, and in 2021, 1.57%. There are another 30 or so EVs being launched into our market, including specialist Polestar. Overseas, Norway is above 75% EV new-car sales, and Rivian has delivered the world’s first EV 4X4 to customers in the USA.   So EVs are inevitable, right? Yes, and no. Today, EVs can easily replace the vast majority of road cars and SUVs, which are mostly used in our capital cities for short trips, or excursions into the country of maybe 150km or so. Yes, I know that’s not you, but you’re not the average Australian motorist. With a range of 400-500km, the average Aussie driving 14,000km a year – which is 38km per day – can easily have their car needs met by an EV, especially as both range and charging options are improving. My experience of running an EV is that you can drive around town all day, charge off a 10A plug overnight at 10km of range per hour, and be good to go at 100% the next day which is why EV owners rarely use public chargers in their home city.   I towed a Tvan with a Tesla! Worked…

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