If I showed up at camp and found out the PH was going to drive me around in a Hyuandai for the hunt, I would feel that he was not properly equipped for the job, and that his reluctance or inability to invest in top quality equipment could put us in danger.

Likewise if I arrived in camp and found out he is carrying a Remington 700.

Dan, are you lonely this Holiday Season? These are not good things to think of. Pour yourself a sundowner now and book a hunt, you will feel much better! I have a great deal in Namibia, DBG area, have you been to Namibia yet?

Happy Holidays!

Damn, hes been drinking again! but hes always more fun when hes been drinking.

Maybe they make Hyundais destined for Africa more stout?

Anyway, the vehicle is only for getting you to and from the spot where you begin your tracking.

On one of my safaris,the Land Rover broke down twice, no three times.

George

Land Rovers are supposed to break down, it's part of the ambiance.

How about if you found out he was an American and you were his first client after his Father bought the farm? He would of course be carrying a copy of 'Mammals of Southern Africa' in his hand and have on brand new clothes from Cabela's. Perhaps a minature Dachsund would be nipping at your feet?

500 Grains
We've been using long wheelbase Suzuki safari cars for about 10 years now. They were made in Bombay India, just across the Arabian Sea from us. They are perfect for OMO and give good mileage. I don't know how many times the brakes ahve been rebuilt. Parts are easy to find in Addis Ababa which you can't say about most safari cars. Whne you open the hood there directions in English, JApanese, Arabic , and Sanskrit. Point is....maybe Hundai DOES make a safari car. Oh, BTW, we also use 700 Remingtons!

Rich Elliott

Rich,

They certainly do make a 4x4's...The one below is their latest called the Terracan. They seem to be well recieved here in the UK and offer quite decent off road performance.



I would be interested to know what Suzuki you guys use...I am guess it would be the Samari or 413 with a 1.3L petrol engine? Do you have any pictures you could post?

Regards,

Pete

Jan Oelofse in Namibia uses customized Suzukis. I must say they're a lot easier to push out of an ant bear hole than a Land Rover.

Toyota, the Land Rover Recovery Vehicle.

The trouble with Hyundai's is they whine like a chow dog about to be barbequed on a spit!

I don't care what kind of vehicle, but all have been Toyota's so far. I made repairs on one because the PH and staff didn't have a clue. As far as what gun he's using, I could care less as long as he knows how to use it. On the 3 safaris I've been on, I'd bet I fire more rounds in an average year that 3 of the 4 PH's have shot in their lives.

I was talking to my PH at the Dallas show one year, and a couple guys looking through his Photo albums asked about his "LAND ROVER", to which My PH replied, "I'd rather push my TOYOTA LAND CRUSER ten miles, than to drive a LAND ROVER 100 yds!"

Quality equipment is important to the success of any hunt. If you show up in Alaska for a moose hunt and the guide only has a row boat, that may be a bad indicator of how things will go.

If you show up in Montana for a November elk hunt and the guide only has a 2wd pickup, you might not get close to the elk.

And if your African PH has low budget equipment, things are more likely to go south as well.

The Land Rover is the vehicle by which all others are judged I have noticed...The reason why we use them is because most bush mechanics can fix them, not so the Toyota...We have all 2003 tricked out Land Rovers and we like them. They are like a controlled feed rifle, Toyotas are the Remington 700, bad news

Well,I have driven various types of Land Rover from Series 11 to LandRover 90's to modern Defenders TD5's as well as a selction of Japanese 4x4's, although not Land Crusiers, I disgree with that last point made by Ray.



The days of a LandRover being servicable/repairable by your average bush mechanic are pretty much gone and have been since the original Defender 200 TDi came out. LandRovers have electronic engine management, electronic traction control, electronic ABS. They are as loaded with electronics as any modern Japanese 4x4, not to mention they now have a turbo which needs regular servicing to protect it from the sand..



Don't get me wrong, they a great off road and great working trucks, but they are no longer simple to work on.



Compared to Japanese 4x4 such as Isuzu or Toyota, even in the UK, LandRover still has not got the quite same reputation for reliablity nor build quality I am sad to say.



The Series vehicles were badly underpowered in desiel form and snapped halfshalfs with alacrety. The 200TDi and 300TDi had gear box alignment and gearbox oil starvation problems on certain batches, resulting in many vehicle that needed a new gear box before they had done 70,000miles. I personally know of two Td5's which have blown engines when only a few months old (they were replaced under warrenty of course) so it looks like they might still be dogged with problems.



A hell of lot of LandRovers "LEAK" ie oils (various), transmission fluid and coolent, "out",(when it often very important it should remain "in"!) while leaking rain, river water and drafts, "in"! The only real difference between the various models is the degree they leak!



Are they a disaster on 4 wheels? no, far from it, but LandRover could sure take a few lessons in quality control from the Japs...Any body who questions that compare a late Series 111 LandRover to an early Toyota HiLux of the same vintage. The have similar levels of technology ie no computers, no turbo's ect. The LandRover is better off road, but the Toyota drives better, has more power, is better built and is more comfortable while still being an excellent if basic (by todays standards) working vehicle.



Regards



Pete

save the bigotry, friend, it's the holiday's for crying out loud.

Your narrow-minded views towards equipment are just a reflection of your shortcomings, not the capability of whomever might wish to use them, and use them very well in all likelihood.

Sam Walton drove an old pickup truck, and was the richest person on Earth. Did that make him less qualified to do his job? And rumor has it that he didn't particularly care to use a PC.

The real trouble begins when some nimrod thinks his choice of equipment makes him better than he is.

If it was a Hyundai Pony I can see a real problem. My parents were bitten with that one in the past because it was cheap to buy. Unfortunately, you can't have cheap and quality in the same sentence. On the flip side, the nice part about high gas prices is that when you fill up your Hyundai, you double the value of the vehicle.

As the proud new owner of a 2004 Toyota Tacoma, I will happily enter the Land Rover/Land Cruiser debate. Quite frankly, I cant imagine there even being a debate about this issue. Toyota builds some of the most reliable vehicles in the world and a friend of mine (who once owned a LR Discovery) was once told BY A LR DEALER that his vehicle was DESIGNED to leak fluids and that it was somehow beneficial. It was referred to as "technical seepage". UGH! Further, I can't imagine any NEW Land Rover being as easy to work on in the bush as the diesel cruisers or double cab hi-luxs that are becoming so popular in Africa these days.

JMHO,

JohnTheGreek

That is a funny question. I dont care what kind of car it is.

Most guides and PH's have a tough time just making a living. A 700 will do, may not be the best but like the Russians said in 1941 about the P-39. While its may not be the greatest airplane ever, its an airplane, and we need airplanes and any airplane is better than no airplane at all. They made due. Thats a bit of wisedom. Any kind of car is better than no car at all, and any rifle is still better than no rifle at all. A lot of PH's Guides, and bush pilots, just make due.

The land rover's are owned and built by ford.I wood rather have a japanese vehicle any time, run forever, cheap on fuel.I drive a suburban every day. $50- $65 worth of gas a week.looking at the toyota, and nissan pick ups this year.I wonder if the Roamanian suv coming out would be a good safari truck.in the write up I read, it was a former military truck, not full of electrical gadgets.

I don't buy any car made by dog eaters.

I drove a PH's Toyota PU in Namibia and that was an experience. Right hand drive with a 5-speed on the column shift, shifted with the left hand. That takes some getting used to for a boy from the states. I did notice that the Toyotas there were carbureted, not FI as are all the ones sold over here and this one was a 1998 model.

Jason,



With regards the Jeep copy, the one that springs to mind is the Mahindra CJ340 which is (or was until failry recently) avialable in the UK and is a Jeep "clone"...they actually had an agreement to build them under license.







see the sites below for lots of info...





http://www.yankey.freeserve.co.uk/mahindra-intro.htm



http://www.film.queensu.ca/CJ3B/World/India.html





Another similar vehicle although a less faithfull copy is the Asia Rocsta and was produced in South Korea. Originally produced as C5 copy for the South Korean Army it was tarted up and sold on the civilian market. The bonus with them is that they come with decent mazda engines....









Like the original Jeeps they copied both of these seem a little low to the ground and i suspect a Series 111 landRover is a more capable vehicle off road. Neither verson sold in any numbers in the UK so trying to assess their reliability is difficult.



Johnthe Greek,



Do the Toyotas you mention have electronic engine management? ABS brakes? Turbo's? Electronicly controlled injection and or fuel pumps? The Toyotas in the UK do and I say that makes them as difficult to work on in primative conditions as pretty much any other modern 4x4.



Regards,



Pete

If it was one of their 4wd models I would be very pleased. Much more comfortable than the other landcruisers etc. I use my hyundai for all my travels around Cape York in Northern Australia. When I have given lifts to others whos cars have 1)broken a front wheel spindle 2)fuel tank mounts broken off 3)electronics died 4)spring hangers broken off, they have comented on how my car is quieter and more comfortable than theres. Besides, if they spend lots on a flash car ,then they will be passing the cost onto me.

What is your experience driving Hyundais in general and off-road in the bush in particular that makes you so set against them?

What, specifically, experience do you have that allows you to "dis" a PH's choice of equipment?

OK guys, no need to get your panties in a twist.

The quality of a professional's equipment says something, like it or not.

Having owned a 2.2l Toyota Double cab 4X4 and a Land Rover Defender 110 2.5 Tdi Defender I can only support that the Landy is more expensive to own and maintain, and is not as a reliable as the Toyota.

Having said that, I prefer the off road ride of the Landy, and if I was ever in a serious prang, this would be the vehicle to be in, it is built like a brick shithouse, and twice as heavy.

Plus it's got that undefinable touch of class the mugs who drive Toymota's can never aspire to.

can you fit a ph,2 hunters,5trackers all their gear and a entire cape buffalo in a toyota because i know you can a landy.

Johan,



I don't mind you taking a pop at LandRovers but please, get it right!



The chasis is and always has been made of steel never Aluminium. The Series chassis could be prone to rust but from the 90 onwards through the Defender's they have that sorted. The old problem was to do with an electrolytic reaction because you had two disssimilar metals next to each other ie steel chassis and an aluminimum body panels. Still there are enough Series 11 landrivers still doing a hard days work on Welsh hill farms to show that it was never a huge problem.



Doors falling off from metal fatigue? thats another new one! LandRovers have thier vices but please!



Regards,



Pete

I can't quote any figures, but from personal experience, I've found that the Landy is a lot tougher vehicle and has miles better suspension than the Toyota. The Landy might use more fuel and might break down more often, but it's a LOT easier to fix in the bush. A Landy will usually get you home...........eventually!

Earlier this year we ended up with 8 people and 2 Buff carcasses in a fairly old defender and we drove it for more than 4 hours over dry black cotton soil that Elephants and other game had trampled over during the previous wet season...... I doubt a Toyota would have done it.

Having said all that, if I had a choice of the 2 vehicles in a hunting camp I would probably pick the one with the most comfortable hunting seat and most supportive back rest!

500grains,

I can see your point, (there isn't one) but I think you are worried about nothing. For the record, none of the vehicles anyone has mentioned on this thread is really a very good off-road machine. A H1 can easily beat any of them. I have had pick-ups that would easily beat up a Landy or a Toyota LandCruiser (old style with Dana axles and GM powertrain, which by the way are the Toyota's you all are pretty much talking about except that later in the production run Toyota installed their own powertrain and even axles).

You have also missed the old International Harvester Scout. A far tougher machine than either the Land Rover, overrated British romantic hype, or the Toyota.

By the way, what breaks on these vehicles? I am used to alternators, radiators, air cleaners (this one can lead to a complete engine in a hurry with a diesel), belts, propshafts, springs, shackles, tires, wheels, etc. Most can be easily replaced in the field if one has the proper tools.

Finally, a 2WD pick-up can take you just about anywhere you need to go in the Rocky Mountain states hunting elk. Add a winch and you can go straight up! No production vehicle (except the H1) rock crawls worth a damn and you won't be rock crawling after elk with a pick-up anyway!

The problem with the H1 is I can take just about any platform and make it just as capable for less than the $100K
a new H1 costs. Oh yeah, the H1 still needs to have the Torsen differentials replaced with locking differentials if you like to go down difficult (fun) paths.

Scott