Cruiser vs Patrol

Best tyres? best vehicle? ... still the best FRIDGE to come!! It will be a good read tonite lol.

If you can afford to keep buying the fuel for ....

The burley's out ......

And here's me thinkin' the Series One Landrover was still being sold off the showroom floor in Africa, along with the Willy's Jeep, Volkswagen beetle and the Mini Minor with the 850 donk.

Yup - they can't afford to keep Toyotas maintained to the extent they require.

Africa as a Continent is mostly 3rd world. South Africa is probably the only country in Africa that is not considered 3rd world, although a great majortiy of the population live in 3rd world conditions. You would be stunned to see how they manage to maintain these vehicles themselves. Not to the standards we are used to here of course, but they manage to keep these rigs going. You will see cars up on ramps having replacement mufflers welded on, in the open, by the roadside. Second hand, recovered, stolen, re-used gear...incredible, dodgy, but they get em going again. A lot of cars are hijacked too, stripped and sold off or used to repair broken down ones. We just cant imagine it or dont understand that situation over here

Quite correct - they're locally known as "Bakkies".

Landrover is the ABSOLUTE king in South Africa too. Everyone I knew who had a 4WD there had a Rover. Landcruisers were noticably absent. In fact - anything Japanese were noticably absent. Period.

You an Ex-patriot, Chrispy? Or just a visitor to RSA, the land of speed lol

hehe.... no - not an ex-pat.... but almost. I've been there probably 20 times or so on business, and was offered a job based in Midrand (between JB and Pretoria) but didn't take it because of the security issues. We were looking at buying a house within the walls of Kyalami Estate - next to the race track but it all fell through when they could not guarantee safe passage for my wife to get to work in Sandton.

I love the place to bits. It's beautiful. It's also the only place I've been 5 seconds away from being carjacked in too....

Maybe one day we'll consider the Cape. That's the nicest spot on Earth IMHO.

What about you?

Hi Chrispy

Was born there. Came to Oz at age 25 and been here longer than that..

Grew up in a small town half way between Cape Town and Johannesburg.

I was back there in January this year sorting out some family matters. It is still a crazy place and they drive like there is no tomorrow lol

So you're from somewhere in Orange Freestate? You weren't a diamond miner were you? ;)

I know what you mean about driving. An associate of mine picked me up from the airport in JoBurg, and proceeded to drive at around the 220km/h mark to the office. BMW M3.. set to "noise"......

Sometime in the distant past a fellow country man (the person formaly known as glowplugs) asked about exporting a tojo ute to said country. My response was "isnt that one of the few countrys it is available of the showroom floor" reply was it is still cheaper to import your own - go figure!!!!!!!!!!! And by the way love em or hate em the vehicles shown in African docos are l ll llll llll lll (I will get there) llllllllllllllllllllllllllllandies

I spent 6 weeks over travelling through SA about 18 months ago. Loved it immensely and will go back. Whilst you see some insane driving especially in Joh'berg and on the highways. (Saw some horrific fatalities, including a head on involving 3 trucks in the Karoo. nasty..) Despite, there are some interesting displays of courtesy and ettiquette, cars will pull half off the road to let you pass, and the use of hazard lights to say thanks. We could do with that kind of decency over here. But without getting completely off track, I would have to say I didnt notice too many Cruisers or Patrols in our travels (over 10,000kms driving) Landrovers seemed to be the more common fourby. I did however go for a ride in a heavily modified hilux ute or "Bakki"

When there's some real work to be done isn't the hilux king ?

certainly not any more mad dog The largest mining co in kal ran the last hilux out of town after everoyne complaining (some people refused point blank to drive em) and there are NONE of the new soft offerings on site - certainly are none where I work Either

I dunno about the boys in Kal Davoe. I was talking about Africa, 3rd world Africa I should say. There's an article on the African 4x4 forum that says the hilux is the workhorse of 3rd world Africa...but you can't believe everything you read.

LOL Baz, I'll be singing it all day now...hahahha