There has been an awful lot of talk about the best vehicle for off-road
work - and talk about class 3 trails and class 5 trails; and talk about
coil verses leaf; and talk about V8 and diesel....
This is all missing the point!
A standard Land Rover is not a great off-roader. Oh, don't get me
wrong: it's better than almost any other *standard* vehicle off-road.
Great off-road vehicles are always modified.
When you come to modifications, then you modify to suit the conditions
you're going to play in.
In the UK, competitive vehicles conform to either ARC specifications
(http://www.the-arc.co.uk/regulations/), and/or the AWDC, and/or the
RAC MSA "Blue Book"
For UK people, there are a number of ways to go with you're off-roading.
See http://www.slroc.co.uk/image_archive/ for some pictures of vehicles
in our club. You will see some leaf-sprung vehicles doing well, but
never as well as the coilers - this is because the coilers are better
at speed events, and that counts..
If you think that's easy, then try this:
http://lucas.ucs.ed.ac.uk/rainforest.challenge.2000/
The 2000 event was won by a bloke in a Range Rover!
In the UK, you can get a hand-made 4x4 - for competitive use.
See:
http://www.bowler-offroad.com/
http://www.ibex4x4.co.uk
http://www.qtservices.co.uk
So, in summary, when Joe (or anyone else, for that matter) askes about
building a better Series Land Rover, there are two main questions:
1) What do you want to do with it (on-road/dirt-track/full-gonzo
off-road?)
2) How much are you prepared to modify the vehicle (costs $$$$ and time)
I got a Series 1 80", with the plan to use it as a dirt-road/easy
off-road vehicle. I am now making a serious off-road toy (by UK/ARC
standards) See http://lucas.ucs.ed.ac.uk/count.zero/ for details...
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--==**==--
Ian Stuart - EDINA, DataLibrary, University computing services.
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A man depriving some village, somewhere, of a first-class idiot
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http://lucas.ucs.ed.ac.uk/
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