The big surprise about the P38 Range Rover

IT’S not every eleven-year-old who gets the gig of redesigning Southport Pier. Why subcontract Southport’s seaside flagship out to some high-flying architect when you can get a bunch of schoolkids to do it?

Yet that’s exactly what I – and about 30 of my classmates – got asked to as a school project once. Obviously my design was the best of the bunch, but I remember having an argument with the council mandarin who came in to judge our efforts, who disagreed with my vision of the pier’s future. Having listened to our views, the council boffins went off – and then ordered the pier buildings to replaced with what I recall being memorably described at the time as an ‘airport terminal on stilts’.

I was thinking about this the other day when driving around in something else that had the difficult task of following up a decades-old institution – the second generation Range Rover. Any replacement for anything that’s universally loved is always going to get a rough ride. The 1994-2002 model is definitely the Rangie’s difficult second album.

It arrives in the dock charged with two counts of not being a proper Range Rover – one that it looks like a Metrocab and the other that it’s horrendously unreliable.

It’s tricky to defend the latter because I remember the car’s Achille’s heel – the complicated air suspension system – letting go on a friend’s 4.0 SE a couple of years ago and prompting a four-figure bill. Yet look back at its showings in the customer satisfaction surveys and you’ll find it was just as bad as Land Rover’s other offerings at the time – certainly, Discovery owners were equally frustrated. The Range Rover’s come on in leaps and bounds since the 1990s – but so have plenty of other cars.

But get past that – and the looks, which actually improved with the subtle nips and tucks over the years – and you’ll discover it feels like a Range Rover.

All the Range Rovers I’ve driven over the years – from a 1970 two-door to the 500bhp leviathan that tops today’s range – give you this wonderful feeling of being slightly invincible. You feel secure knowing that even if your alloys are six inches deep in thick mud you’ll power out of it effortlessly – and the most you’ll have to worry about is what position your electrically-operated leather seat should be in.

The second-gen Range Rover does all of that. Yes, it’s thirsty, but so is every other big off-roader, and because people dismiss the ‘bad’ Range Rover it’s a lot cheaper than its predecessor.

As second acts go it was brilliant. Although not as brilliant as my schoolboy redesign of Southport Pier was.

Forget the silly name - the Nissan Qashqai is a deserving cash cow

THE Nissan Qashqai is a bit like the geeky kid everyone seems to have gone to school with. Studious and destined to go on to greater things, but entirely fair game for the playground bullies because some cruel parents have given it a stupid name.

I’ve just spent a couple of days in the company of the latest 1.5 DCI model and almost felt compelled to leap to its defence because people couldn’t resist calling it names. Sticks and stones – apt, given its off-roader pretensions – may break its parts but words will never hurt it.

“Ahhh, so you’ve got a Nissan Squashed Quiche! Any good?” a mate of mine immediately asked when he found I’d got the nation’s fifth best-selling new car as a temporary companion.

I replied by telling him that yes, I can understand entirely why so many of you are buying them. It’s roomy, easy to manoeuvre for something of its off-roader stature, and it’s well equipped. In fact, easily my favourite thing about the latest model is the optional Blind Spot Warning system, which flickers a tiny little orange lightbulb next to your door mirror every time an errant Transit thunders past. It’s got the potential to save your life on a congested motorway, but it doesn’t beep intrusively every ten seconds. Just that little orange flicker to remind you. Why can’t all cars have one?

Another pal wasn’t surprised when I told him. “They’re great, those Cash Cows. Loads of people I know have got ‘em”.

Agreed. Not only is usefully more practical than Nissan’s family hatch for the same sort of money, the Pulsar, it’s got a chunky, rugged look to it the more conventional Golf rival doesn’t. Like the first generation Cash ‘n’ Carry – sorry, Qashqai – it’s also built in Britain so you can justifiably buy one as a patriotic purchase, and unlike the first generation model it doesn’t suffer from having slightly cheap-feeling plastics throughout its interior.

It was my dad, however, who posed the big question. “It looks like a good car, the Mushy Peas,” he said. “But would you buy one?”

Personally, I wouldn’t – but that’s because the Skoda Yeti I tried a few weeks ago could endure trickier terrain and carry bigger bookcases than the Crash Bandicoot can, and I know the Nissan makes up for it with better looks and a nicer drive.

The great thing with this bit of the market is that everyone makes a small, off-roader-esque car these days – but the Nissan’s one of the best because it’s such a good all-rounder. That’s why it’s such a big seller – and why it really is a Cash Cow.

Prices for new Suzuki Vitara announced

PRICES for Suzuki’s new Vitara – being introduced 25 years after the original went on sale – will start at £13,999 when it goes on sale in April.

The small off-roader will be offered with a 1.6 litre petrol or 1.6 litre turbodiesel engine, and the option of the Japanese manufacturer’s four-wheel-drive system, called ALLGRIP.

The range-topping versions cost around £22,000, but all models will have seven airbags, plus a Bluetooth-enabled DAB digital radio, fitted as standard.

Jeep launches its fastest Grand Cherokee yet

JEEP has turned up the wick on its biggest off-roader by introducing a performance model.

The SRT Red Vapor version of the Grand Cherokee uses a 6.4 litre V8 to get to 60mph in five seconds, before going on to a top speed of 160mph.

The 461bhp 4x4 is available to order now, and will set you back £64,995. Find out more by going to www.jeep.co.uk.

Subaru Outback ready for April launch

PRICES for Subaru’s new Outback off-road estate car will start at £27,995 when it goes on sale on 1 April.

It’ll be available with two trim levels a choice of two of the company’s flat four ‘boxer’ engines – a 2.0 litre turbodiesel engine, and a 2.5 litre petrol powerplant. 

For more information about the new Outback go online to www.subaru.co.uk

Why I won't be investing in one of the last Land Rover Defenders

MY DAD reckons he’s had a brilliant idea for a bit of automotive investment. Buy one of the very last Land Rover Defenders, stick it in a shed somewhere and make a small fortune after unearthing it in about 20 years’ time. It’s a no-brainer, surely?

Anyone with even the vaguest interest in cars will know Land Rover’s workhorse is a British motoring institution. Despite being treated to new engine once every so often and being given the Defender name in 1990, it’s pretty much unaltered from when it was introduced more than 30 years ago. Whenit finally goes out of production this December it’ll be the end of an era.

There are however a couple of problems with my dad’s cunning scheme, the main one being that Defenders aren’t the cheap, rustic farming runarounds they used to be. Land Rover is seeing out is longest-serving modelwith a trio of special editions, the cheapest of which costs £28,000. The range-topping Autobiograhy version is an eye-watering £62,000, which is a lot of money for a car he’d like to stash away in a shed somewhere.

The other problem, of course, is there’s no guarantee it’d work. Everyone had pretty much the same idea when the Mini went out of production 14 years ago, and the result now is you don’t actually have to look very hard to find X-registered and W-registered Coopers with fewer than 1,000 miles on the clock. As a result, they’re worth barely any more than they were back in 2000.

Then there’s the vexing problem of what you’d actually do with a very old but – showroom fresh – car, because even popping to the shops will ruin the minimal mileage that makes it special. After 20 years of having a Land Rover not moving an inch, all anybody will want to do it is keep it in another shed or put in a museum, which defeats the point of it being a car.

If I were lucky enough to be able to afford one of the very last of the old-school Land Rovers, I’d take it down muddy tracks and use it to pull stranded motorists out of snowdrifts – in other words, using it for what it’s meant for.

Even if there was the remotest prospect of making a couple of quid in the distant future, I’d much rather be out there enjoying this fantastic British institution than hiding it away.

It's the beginning of the end of the Land Rover Defender

LAND ROVER has announced a trio of special editions to mark the Defender's final year of production.

The Heritage, Adventure and Autobiography editions, which are all powered by the company's 2.2 litre diesel engine, are available to order now and will be on sale until the end of the model's production in December. The cheapest of the three is the Heritage edition, which costs £27,800.

The off-roader has been in production since 1984, and was given the Defender name a quarter of a century ago. Land Rover is considering keeping the model in limited production outside the European Union, but it will disappear from the showrooms at the end of the year.

However, there is a crumb of good news - work is very much underway on finally creating the trusty Land Rover's replacement.

Nick Roger, the manufacturer's vehicle line director, said: 'Passion and enthusiasm surround everything we do with Defender, and that will never change. With a history stretching back 68 years, this is a Land Rover that has thrived for decades on its unquestionable capability and iconic shape.

'I now have the honour of being one of the many enthusiasts at Land Rover committed to creating a fitting successor to the legendary Defender.'

Land Rover has also marked the Defender's final year by using six classic Land Rovers to create the UK's biggest ever sand artwork. To see the video, have a look at this article I've writen for the Classic Cars For Sale website. 

Lotus and Ariel take their sports cars off road

THE INTERNET is currently bursting at the seams with people wondering whether they’re going to get their hoverboards this year. It’s 2015, which if you grew up in the Eighties or early Nineties only means one thing; finally being able to see how much Back to the Future II jumped from fiction to fact.

It’s odd looking back at the all the things proclaimed as being the future back in 1985, and I don’t just mean the Sinclair C5. Things like four-wheel-steering and talking digital dashboards were about as futuristic as Human League records – but how of many today’s cars actually have them? On the other hand, Eighties luxuries like folding door mirrors and reversing cameras are making it into even the cheapest of today’s cars, and safety essentials ABS and airbags are de rigueur. 

But I’d love to know is what petrolheads will be thinking in another 30 years when they look back at motoring’s latest rethink. This is the year, it’s looking increasingly likely, when the British sports car whipped off its trainers and slapped on some walking boots.

I’m not talking about Jaguar’s four-wheel-drive version of its F-type, but sports cars designed specifically for venturing up forest tracks rather than setting blistering lap times around Oulton Park. We’ve had sporty off-roaders before, of course, but it’s looking increasingly likely 2015 will be the year of the off-roady sports car.

Word on the automotive grapevine is that Lotus is making an off-road version of its Evora, which will keep its rear-wheel-drive but will be jacked up and fitted with knobbly tyres. It might sound preposterous, but given Lotus’ engineering talent I’m really looking forward to seeing if they can pull it off. The existing roadgoing Evora cope that badly when I treated it to a spot of impromptu off-roading for a photoshoot at Southport Beach when I test drove one a few years ago, either!

Luckily, you don’t have to wait until Lotus finishes to see what an off-road sports car looks like. Ariel has managed to cross its already mildly unhinged Atom with something you might find in an Action Man toy set, called it the Nomad, and is about to put it on sale. It hasn’t got four-wheel-drive either, but with the chunky tyres, the minimal weight and the 200bhp the 2.4 litre Honda engine chucks out, it’s unlikely you’d need it on the rough stuff. As unlikely as an off-road Ariel Atom sounds, I think it’s going to be fantastic.

So is the off-road sports car something that’s going to catch on or is it an automotive dead end? Given the appetite for cars that even look a bit off-roaders but aren’t – take a bow, Nissan Qashqai – I’d like to think it’s the former.

I’m more likely to pilot an Ariel off-road than to take up hoverboarding, that’s for sure!

Check out these 1980s 4X4 images

A LOT of you enjoyed the 1980s off-roader pictures, which I've been scanning in digitally over the Christmas break.

However it turns out my father had another old photo album with even more archive shots, including these shots from across Lancashire and Yorkshire.

Here are few more gems from more than 30 years ago, including everything from Land Rover Series Is to Mercedes G-Wagens. There's even a Daihatsu F20 getting stuck in - when was the last time you saw one of those?

You'll love these 1980s off roader pictures

A BIT of snow didn't bother the owners of these old school off-roaders back in the 1980s. Nor did mud, rivers, dirt tracks up the side of Cumbrian hills or disused quarries, looking at these great shots.

I've spent most of this afternoon trawling through this treasure trove of photographs showing Britain's off-roader fraternity in action throughout the 1980s. There are more than 75 pictures in the collection, taken by my father when he was the greenlaning officer for the Red Rose Land Rover Club. Two of the vehicles shown are his - the modified Land Rover Series IIa (710 GDM, where are you now?) and the FLM Panelcraft-converted four-door Range Rover, now believed to be the only surviving example in Britain.

Most of the mudpluggers, shown at greenlaning and trials events throughout Lancashire and Cumbria, are Land Rovers, ranging from Series Is to two-door Range Rovers, but the likes of the Suzuki SJ and Lada Niva make appearances too.

In fact it's hugely refreshing seeing these early 4x4s - particularly the Series I and II Land Rovers - being used as their creators intended, without anyone worrying about what they're worth these days. Here are ten of the best from a great collection of images, some of which were taken more than 30 years ago...

The new Jeep that's secretly a small Fiat

GREAT THINGS happen when America and Italy get into bed together.

How else do you explain Spaghetti Westerns, deep pan pizzas and The Godfather Part II? It gets even more special as soon as cars are involved – how else do you explain the Ferrari 250 GT Spyder California – so it was probably only a matter of time before Fiat’s transatlantic tie-up with Chrysler finally came up with the goods.

That’s because the latest unbelievably rugged offering from Jeep is, if you peel away all the Action Man packaging, basically the four-wheel-drive Fiat 500X unveiled earlier this year.

In fact, it’s more than that; because it’s built around the underpinnings developed by Fiat for its small cars (the company’s imaginatively-titled ‘Small’ platform) the new Jeep Renegade is also a distant relation to the Fiat Punto, the Alfa Romeo MiTo and – by virtue of the firm’s previous infatuations with General Motors  - the Vauxhall Adam.

The fact the Jeep Renegade manages to do the motoring equivalent melting down a Barbie doll, putting it back together and flogging it on a second time as a G.I Joe action figure is all down what the car industry called platform sharing. Ever wondered why a Volkswagen Golf and a SEAT Leon feel strangely similar to drive, or why the Toyota Aygo and the Peugeot 108 have the same vigour for small, twisty roads? It’s because under the skin they’re basically the same.

In the new Renegade’s case, it’s a bit like Fiat taking two pizzas and lavishing them with radically different toppings – olives and pineapples for the Fiat 500X, and every red meat imaginable for the muscular, macho Jeep. It’s great news for the car makers because they can sell the same basic product to two completely different sets of people.

Would I ever buy a slightly bloated version of the Fiat 500 that’s then been given four-wheel-drive to remove it even further from the 1950s micro marvel it roughly apes? No. Chances are, however, that I would buy something that looks a bit like the Jeep Cherokees which were all the rage here a decade or so ago, but shrunk down to make it more manageable in a Britain where petrol costs £1.30 a litre.

After what feels like an eternity of being treated to blobbily-proportioned family hatchbacks which only vaguely resemble off-roaders, it’s great that Fiat’s small car know-how has finally given Jeep the chance to make something which actually looks the part.

Fingers crossed it’s as good off the road as it’s Fiat-developed siblings are on it.

Fiat beefs up the Panda 4x4

A MORE hardcore version of the UK’s smallest off-roader has just been launched by Fiat.

The Panda Cross is based on the existing four-wheel-drive Panda but adds a stack of gadgets you’d normally only find on much larger off-roaders – including oversized tyres, hill descent control, a sump guard, and a terrain control stability system – to the package.

It's also got a six speed gearbox with a shortened first gear designed with 'crawling' through challenging conditions in mind - admittedly, it's not the low ratio 'box you'll get on a Land Rover Defender, but this will squeeze through many a gap and gulley which the bigger, 'proper' off-roader can't.

Fiat said its sheer versatility has come from more than 30 years of making some of Europe's smallest 4x4s. A spokesman for the company said: "In 2006 SUVs accounted for around seven percent of the total car market in Europe whereas today they account for approximately 20 percent.

"Yet despite the proliferation of models in the past decade the new Fiat Panda Cross remains a truly unique offering, by combining the genuine capabilities of a proper off-road vehicle with the efficiency and practicality of a versatile city car."

Prices start at £15,945 for the TwinAir-engined version, while the 1.3 litre version will set you back £16,945. Both go on sale here towards the end of the year.

The Land Rover Discovery is a suprisingly likeable removals van

MUCH like making a mountain goat do an elephant’s work, I felt a tad cruel entrusting the job of moving house to an ancient off-roader.

The unenviable task of hauling beds, armchairs and about 300 old copies of Autocar really ought to be given to something specially designed for the task, not unlike the Ford Transit Luton van I used the last time I moved any furniture about. Yet last week, with every van hire firm within a 40-mile radius fully booked, the gargantuan load-lugging challenge fell instead to a Land Rover Discovery.

A family off-roader which celebrates its 25^thanniversary later this year.

Fittingly, the one I’d been lent for the morning by a mate was one of the early cars – the original three-door version, with a 2.5 litre diesel lump to drag its considerable weight along school runs up and down the land in the early Nineties. It also came in exactly the sort of condition you expect any early Disco to arrive in these days – caked, inside and out, with a thin sheet of muck from an off-road excursion several weeks earlier.

While borrowing a 160,000 mile Land Rover to help you with moving house might seem a bit like entering Sir Chris Bonington into World’s Strongest Man, it performed more than admirably, heaving shelves and chairs of all kinds of clutter about without so much a whimper of complaint. It even happily sat at precisely 69.9mph on a dual carriageway – even though it took an eternity to get there!

Admittedly, the poor Landie lurched its way through roundabouts, chomped up £30’s worth of diesel in no time and had the acceleration and stopping capabilities of the Mersey Ferry, but I couldn’t help but warm to it. It’s got a rugged charm to it, it feels far more car-like to drive than the Defenders I’ve tried and it’s enormously practical, and that’s before I get to the best bit.

A lot like the Audi TTs I mentioned in these pages a few weeks ago, the Land Rover Discovery is astonishing value for money these days.

Yes, I know they’ve got a crummy reputation for build quality and a penchant for Shell’s finest but think about it – where else can you can get seven seats and unstoppable ability on the rough stuff for the same sort of money? The only thing I can think of is its great Oriental arch-nemesis, the Mitsubishi Shogun, but it doesn’t come with the wax-jacketed, Countryfile image the Disco does.

The Land Rover Discovery, especially in mud-caked, worn-out spec, is far from perfect. Yet you can’t help liking it.

The MINI Countryman isn't as bad as everyone makes out

I GET the feeling this particular article is going to be an expensive one.

The trouble is, I’ve ended up spending three days in a car which everyone loves to hate. In order to dissuade me from being too nice about it, my friends have used Facebook to set up a £10-per-compliment fines system, payable next time I see them in the pub.

A tricky call when the car in question is the MINI Countryman.

It’s one of a trio of jacked-up, off-roader-esque diesel hatchbacks (or ‘crossovers’ in automotive marketing speak) I’ve had the privilege to try out lately, with my weekend in the most massive MINI of them all coming after stints in Honda’s latest CR-V and Volkswagen’s Tiguan. It’s probably worth tackling the rather bloated, retro elephant in the room first; the MINI is, to my mind at least, the ugliest of the three.

I didn’t like the styling when I roadtested it forThe Champion three years ago and it still doesn’t look great now – it’s not that it’s a ridiculously oversized retro pastiche of the original Mini, but that, compared to the Honda and VW it just seems a bit blobby and ill defined. Perhaps as a conscious result of how it looks, the boot is also noticeably smaller than most of its rivals too.

Sadly, I don’t get a tenner back for every time I’m critical of the Countryman, so a few callous comments about its styling aren’t going to help me. Annoyingly, there are quite a few things the Countryman has in its favour.

The interior, for instance, is far more imaginative than anything else in its class, and if you’ve spent a lifetime on the M6 being bored by the relentless sea of grey trim and unassuming buttons in most modern motors then you’ll love the MINI’s rocker switches, lashings of chrome and the silly, pizza dish-sized speedo.

It’s also quiet at speed, rides superbly, is more than roomy enough for you and four of your average-sized chums, and it comes with the same feeling of sturdiness you’d expect from a car masterminded by BMW.

What you might not be expecting – and I definitely wasn’t until I ventured off the motorway and onto the quiet country lanes criss-crossing Cheshire – is that the MINI Cooper D Countryman handles and steers so much better than any of its chief rivals. There is, I begrudgingly admit, a faint whiff of Nineties hot hatch about the way it chews up corners, and a confidence-inspiring finesse to the steering I genuinely wasn’t expecting.

Given twenty grand it’s not the crossover I’d go for – that’d still be the Skoda Yeti – but the Countryman is far better than my mates give it credit for.

Mates who, by my reckoning, I now owe roughly £80. Oops.

Mid-life facelift for BMW X3 confirmed

A NEW version of BMW’s X3 will go on sale across the UK later this summer, it has been announced.

The off-roader has been treated to an extensive facelift and will go on sale in July, with customers able to choose from four different variants, with all the engines on offer being diesel-powered.

Prices for the entry-level model, the X3 sDrive18d SE, start at £30,990.

Happy birthday, Toyota RAV-4!

TOYOTA has celebrated the 20^th birthday of one of its models by offering the latest version with more gadgets at a lower price.

The original RAV-4 proved a hit back in 1994 with its blend of edgy styling, off-roader stance and its inviting driving experience, and the name has remained a staple of the company’s range ever since.

The latest version, which with a starting price of £22,195 is now £400 cheaper than its predecessor, is also offered with a more generous helping of standard equipment than previously.

Stop Suzuki if you've heard this one before

 

There's something just a tad familiar about one of the new concept cars Suzuki is showing off at this month's Tokyo Motor Show.

The X-Lander, which uses a 1.3 litre hybrid engine mated to the four-wheel-drive system of the company's venerable Jimny off-roader (which, incidentally, we can't believe is still on sale after 15 years either!) is being described by the company as being "like a fusion of off-road power and mechanical precision".

However, its formula of two seats in a cockpit open to the elements, a small-to-non-existent boot and faintly Toytown-esque styling seem more than just a little bit reminiscent of a certain sales flop offered by the company back in the dark days of the mid Nineties.

X-90, anyone?

New Land Cruiser is a breath of fresh air for off roader fans

If you’re fed up of seeing cars that look off-roaders but aren’t then you’ll be delighted to learn a new Toyota Land Cruiser has just been launched.

Historically the wheels of choice for everyone from the United Nations to the farmers of the Australian Outback, the latest Land Cruiser follows in the footsteps of its predecessors by putting off-road ability and durability first and style - check out the enormous and not-at-all-gaudy chrome grille - a distant second.

Prices for the new Land Cruiser, which arrives in the UK in December, start at £34,995.

Citroën joins the off-roader party

Citroën's DS-branded line of luxury models is about to be joined by an off-roader, if this sveltly styled concept car is anything to go by.

I'm already a bit of a fan of the French firm's upmarket offerings - the rapid DS3 Racing in particular - but this latest offering, which will be officially unveiled at the Shanghai Motor Show, suggests the company is looking at grabbing a slice of the SUV cake too.

What the exact production version looks like, how much it costs and what'll it be like to drive remain as jobs for Citroën to sort out in the fullness of time, but there are one or two things I'm already sure of. Firstly, that - unlike the BMW X4 unveiled last week - it looks fabulous, although the company's claim it's got "a hynoptic stare" is just a tiny bit fatuous.

More importantly, it would be impossible for the company to make it worse than the last Citroën off-roader, the godawful C-Crosser.

Say bonjour, then, to the Citroën DS Wild Rubis...

The BMW X4 just isn't a proper off-roader

THEY don’t make ‘em like they used to. It’s probably the most overused cliché in the classic car book, but in the case of one off-road encounter last weekend it’s definitely true.

The car in question was an old Land Rover – specifically, a 1969 Series IIA of the ex-military variety – which I encountered at a garage in Lancashire, which I couldn’t help but swoon over just slightly. When you’ve been raised around old Range Rovers and brought up to believe anything vaguely old from Lode Lane is cool, you can’t help it.

At least one mate of mine (you know who you are) just doesn’t get my fascination with old off-roaders but the great thing with old Land Rovers is they acquire a patina over decades which the new ones just don’t have. Whereas it’s right for someone with an MG or a Triumph to spend hours on end polishing their pride ‘n’ joy, a Series IIA without a thin coating of muck is like an Arctic explorer who doesn’t have a craggy face and a light helping of stubble. Yes, old off-roaders are slow and noisy and corner like ocean liners, but the important thing is that they’re hard as nails.

Or at least, they used to be, because when I got in that night I saw BMW’s latest take on the off-roader – the X4, which is a bit like an X6 and about as up for a spot of Arctic exploring as Gok Wan does. Yes, I know I drove an X3 last year and found it annoyingly brilliant, but deep down I’d still rather that old Series IIA be on my driveway.

Land Rover’s own 2013 offerings are still capable mudpluggers, of course, but judging by BMW’s evidence, at least, they definitely don’t make off-roaders like they used to.