Off Road Vans

Dusty ,
Tell your Old Man to get off his butt and add the four recognized off-road vans to his link list - Bushtracker , Phoenix , Kedron and Trakmaster .
Willie .

Willie
You old mongrel, Dusty went and bit me on the ar$e thanks to you,
OK Jobs done, had to make my own text for Phoenix ,and Kedron, the Logo's were no good.

.

22lt/100 for the 4.2 Patrol is worst case with that much weight. I tow more weight that than and average whilst towing about 17/100k

Worst I had was into a head wind & with crap fuel I got 21.5l/100k.

Driving type will vary this but 22 sounds like a bit of a lead foot or an exaggeration to me.

Where was that test written up?

I have a Roadstar Voyager which all up is 2.6 tonne and from Brissy to Yamba and in a hurry got 5.9kpl travelling close to or a bit over the limit at times. This was average for whole return trip including sightseeing without van on.
Towcar a 4.2TD Cruiser 60,000k on clock.
Previously had a Nissan time bomb and didnt really get much better from Brissy to Hervey Bay on two trips.
Cruiser does it easier and much less tiring to drive and much more comfortable as well.

I was camped next to a fellow in the Pilbara last year and he had recently purchased a F350 XL 4x4 7.3l V8 Turbo Diesel to tow his 18' Bushtracker because it had pulled the guts out of his Toyota diesel. Anyway he reckoned the F350 was fantastic pulled the Bushtracker easily and was burning 16l 100k at 90kph. He said his toyota used to burn mid to high 20's and really worked.

Run into another fellow along the Nullabor with a 350 towing a 20' Kedron Cross Country and he reckoned it was burning 18l 100k crossing the nul into what was a pretty brisk head wind.

I don't take too much notice of any tests those mags do the best wasy to get a correct indication is to ask the people who drive a particular vehicle.

Wendy's
you have hit the nail right on the head.
If you are really going to go off road then keep the van as small as you can manage to live in. I have a Regal 16ft off roader with a duck tail see members pic below and do take it off road. Even at this length it is often a tight squeeze going down some tracks and at 1.8t loaded works the Nissan real hard in sand.
Then if you are only interested in going on gravel roads many makes have a strengthened up model for this type of travel.
As in buying vehicles it is always conditioned by the hip pocket nerve. Also as previously said buy a vehicle that can easily tow your van with a large margin in reserve power & weight wise. Or purchase a van to suit your vehicle.