Over the years I have had the pleasure to drive a pretty wide selection of vehicles, starting off with the old Land Rover whatever series it was and a 130 Defender to the old Dattos, before they became Nissan Patrols. At the time I did my own research test drives etc and bought what I could afford. In the early days it was easy as there was not a great deal of range. Then Toyota brought in the Hilux dual cabs, missed out on the 55s which would have made a great bus, to the 45s and finally the 70 series troopies. Again with work drove a mixture of mainly Cruisers and Patrols, each had good and bad, for us at the time the Troopy was the best. Then the ever ongoing flurry of dual cabs and the demise of the 4wd.
It was like some metrosexual latte loving jurno having an identity crisis and insisted the 4wds be more car like. Now we seem to have every type of car for every shade of cosmetic he has to wear. Really.
Just when it looked like the 4wd community could be getting some really great 4wd vehicle they all went soft. Not to mention the must have safety devices and traction aids, all of which may work fine on road vehicles but do the absolute opposite off road.
Sorry people I don't expect a real 4wd to be released as a new vehicle, if ever. Especially now the mining industry has been forced into have 5 star rated vehicles. Absolute crap. Thanks to some bureaucratic decision that it is safer. But I digress.......
We currently have an 80 Series and a Suzuki Grand Vitara. Why, quiet simple really. The bride due to medical reasons is high needs when it come to vehicles. If she is expected to drive it or be a passenger in it she needs to be able to drive it and be comfortable in it. A five minute sit in a vehicle will very quickly cull a vehicle for us.
The Zook is supposed to be her car, but the kids are constantly using it. The 80, well, we wanted to get into the touring side of things and while the Zook will do it the Cruiser tows the camper a whole lot easier.
Choosing the 80 we did the rounds of the car yards and she sat in just about every make and model of potential vehicles out there. She fell in love with the 100 series ticking everything for her. For the Patrol fans, yes she tried it but found the seating position too low and had troubles seeing over the bonnet. Looking at the budget the 100 was out of the question and the 80 was second on the list. We just had to wait for the right one, an auto turbo diesel to turn up. took a while but that is what we got, only because it suits our needs.
Is it the vehicle I would like to have? No but I think our dream vehicle would be a separate thread.
