Nearly all four-wheel-drive cars are capable of amazing their owners by
scaling lumps of seemingly insurmountable geology. That said, nearly all
four-wheel-drive cars are equally capable of amazing their owners by getting
stuck on little more than a mildly sloping croquet lawn.
I have driven a Jeep Wrangler over the Sierra Nevada mountains in California,
climbing boulders so vast that they would not even fit inside the foyer of a
large National Health Service hospital, and yet I’ve been stranded in
exactly the same car on a small hill in Gloucestershire.
It’s the same story with the Range Rover. This is a car that once took me in
Hannibal’s footsteps from Val d’Isère to Italy, so I figured it would make
mincemeat of the Yorkshire Dales. Wrong. After 500 yards it sank up to its
door handles and the locals (who were laughing a lot, for Yorkshirists) said
I wouldn’t get it free until June. You know the Toyota Land Cruiser. Built
to take Wilbur Smith through the vast heat that is Africa, designed to fight
the good fight for the United Nations in the world’s troublespots. And
utterly defeated by a small mound of earth built by my local farmer to keep
gypsy caravans off her land.
The problem is that while a big off-road car may have 9in of ground clearance,
it will become beached when asked to tackle an obstacle that is 10in tall.
Look at it this way. I can amaze old ladies with my ability to get things
down from 7ft shelves in a supermarket. But if the product they want is more
than 7ft 1in from the ground, I’m just as useless as they are.
And then there’s the tyres. Unless they’re knobblier than a teenager’s face
they’re going to spin like a washing machine on its final cycle if you ask
them to get you up a sloping lawn. Wet grass in off-road circles is known as
“green ice”.
Which brings me neatly on to the Argocat I’ve just bought. This is a small
Canadian bathtub with headlamps. But it has eight-wheel drive and this means
its off-road ability is simply incredible.
When three of its wheels are in mid-air or flailing around in the mud for
grip, it still has five to keep you moving. And of course, as an added
benefit, an eight-wheel-drive vehicle is twice as irritating for the
environmentalists as one with only four-wheel drive.
So far I’ve spent a couple of weeks playing around with it and as yet haven’t
discovered a single obstacle that it can’t beat. You arrive at a slope so
severe that it would stump Chris Bonington and you think: “Well, there isn’t
a hope in hell of getting up that.” Not in a vehicle that has only 25
horsepower under the bonnet. That’s like asking a food blender to get a
satellite into orbit. But up it goes. Nothing stops it. I bet it could even
manage some of the speed humps in Kensington and Chelsea.
And if you really don’t like the look of the terrain ahead, you just turn the
handlebars, which locks up all four wheels on one side, and the little
eight-foot ’Cat spins round in its own length, like a tank.
The only time I had a moment’s worry was when I inadvertently drove into the
sea while on the Isle of Man. I’d been told not to worry because it floats
and because the chunky tyres act like paddles on a Mississippi steamer. So,
I’d been assured, I’d be able to potter along at speeds of up to one knot.
Which is great in a lake. But not so good in the Irish Sea, on the eve of a
full moon with the tide racing out at 9 knots. This is a good way of
arriving, backwards, and quite fast, in the harbour at Belfast.
Happily, one of the Argocat’s tyres brushed up against a piece of seaweed and
this provided enough traction to give it forward momentum again and make it
back to shore.
Drawbacks? Well if you peel away the floor to reveal the workings of the
beast, you find what looks like a mad secret dungeon shared by Mr Suzuki,
James Watt and Zed from Pulp Fiction. It’s a world of chains in there and
I’m sorry but I find this to be very unsatisfactory technology. Chains, as
any eight-year-old boy knows, come off a lot, causing your testicles to slam
into the saddle and become pancake-shaped. Chains make you go cross-eyed.
Then there’s the question of noise. The Kohler engine may be small but my God
it makes a din. It’s so loud you can’t even hear what the environmentalists
are saying as you bumble by. This means you can convince yourself they are
waving their walking sticks in a gesture of countryside camaraderie.
I love my Argocat. It does 22mph, which means it’s faster and more comfortable
than walking, it seats six and it costs around £14,000. Which means it’s
about £16,000 less than the new Jeep Grand Cherokee.
Jeep pioneered this whole off-road business back in the 1930s and like all
American organisations with 15 minutes of history under their belts,
tradition runs deep in the company’s veins.
Strange to report then that with its new car it has made no effort whatsoever
to ape the rather appealing styling of the last one. It’s just 16ft of car.
A lump of what could well be some Hyundai. Inside, however, there is one
piece of Jeep tradition that has not been lost. No space at all. The new
Grand Cherokee may be 5in longer and a wee bit wider than the old model, but
climbing inside is like climbing into the wrong end of a pair of binoculars.
You’d need to be legless to fit in the back and the only dog that would fit
in the boot is one that had been run over.
What’s more, everything in the cabin feels like it’s come from Matalan. Except
for the handbrake, which has the texture of a Far Eastern vibrator. And then
there’s the leather, which seems to have come from those polyurethane
synthetic cows that provide America with its UHT milk.
Like the new Discovery, the big Jeep has a monocoque chassis, which proves the
Mercedes influence at Chrysler is beginning to filter through. But there’s
still some way to go because the damn thing has a live rear axle, which
means any imperfection in the road shakes your hair out.
This wouldn’t be so bad if the seats were up to scratch. But they are useless.
The only good thing is that due to a lack of side support you spend more
time falling out of them than sitting there being shaken to bits by
America’s idea of modern rear suspension.
So it’s uncomfortable, cramped and feels like it’s made entirely from melted
Lego. And it costs more than £30,000. Admittedly, you get lots of standard
equipment for that, including a heater that works like American foreign
policy, blowing either very hot or very cold but incapable of getting the
temperature just right. You also get three headrests for your deformed rear
passengers, the middle one of which obliterates all traffic in the rear-view
mirror.
There are some good things, though. The headlamps are very bright, which is
good for spotting bears, and the Mercedes V6 diesel engine is quiet,
refined, frugal and remarkably powerful.
Sadly, however, to discover this means you would have to be driving the thing,
and that would mark you out as being mad. Because apart from the engine and
the brightness of the headlamps, every single thing about this car is wrong.
Even the underside technology is from the Stone Age. Yes, you get three
electronic differentials that send the power back and forth depending on
which wheel has the most traction. But the suspension can’t be raised and
lowered, so when you’re beached that’s it. And it won’t self-level either.
Perhaps that’s why they’ve made the boot so small — to stop you putting
anything heavy in there.
As an off-roader then, the Grand Cherokee is beaten by my little Argocat. As a
car, it’s beaten by just about everything.
VITAL STATISTICS
Model Jeep Grand Cherokee 3.0 CRD
Engine 2987cc, six cylinders
Power 215bhp @ 4000rpm
Torque 376 lb ft @ 1600rpm
Transmission Five-speed automatic 4x4
Fuel 27.7mpg (combined cycle)
CO2 270g/km
Acceleration 0-62mph: 9sec
Top speed 124mph
Price £32,895
Verdict Outclassed and outplayed
Rating 2/5
Model Argocat Avenger 8x8
Engine 674cc, two cylinders
Power 25bhp @ 3600rpm
Torque 40 lb ft @ 2200rpm
Transmission Two forward, one reverse, auto
Fuel One gallon petrol per two hours
CO2 N/A
Acceleration 0-62mph: N/A
Top speed 22mph
Price £14,682
Verdict The more wheels the better
Rating 3/5
