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NEWS • VIEWS • KIT • EXPEDITIONS • MODIFIED VEHICLES • GREEN LANING PLUS Properly off-road in a Bentley Bentayga
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Rallye Breslau: ‘Europe’s Dakar’ Mellow laning in the hills of North enters the Ultra4 era
OCT 2023
East Leics
Lockdown-built 110 for the heady days of freedom 4x4 Cover Oct 23 with sarah.indd 1
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MOTORSPORT
Bowler-built Defender 90s come through with flying
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MOTORSPORT
colours at inaugural Scottish Summer Hill Rally
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owler Motors’ rally-built Land Rover Defender 90s put on a stellar performance at the inaugural Scottish Summer Hill Rally, based at Thirlestane Castle in the Borders south-east of Edinburgh, as they demonstrated their ability to maintain a strong pace over terrain far more punishing than that seen on a traditional stage rally. A total of eight of the vehicles started the event, with the fastest of them posting a time equating to fifth place overall in a discipline dominated by purpose-built spaceframe race cars. The event was the third round of the 2023 UK Tata Elxsi Defender Rally Series and the first hillrally in the calendar. It presented teams with a variety of low-traction conditions and terrain that was by turns fast and punishing then technical and, well, punishing. ’It was the exact challenge that a traditional hillrally is renowned for,’ says Bowler, ‘and a perfect test for our teams as they experienced a wide range of rally disciplines.’ They also experienced the sort of dust that’s normally associated more with racing in the dunes of North Africa than the hills of Lauderdale. In the wake of some unseasonably hot and try weather, the event took place in crystal clear conditions – until the racers’ wheels started kicking it up, at which point visibility on the stages was reduced down to zero in places. These stages numbered 17 in total, spread over two days. Plenty of time for things to go wrong, then – though as the event progressed, it became increasingly apparent that the Bowlers had plenty of appetite for a war of attrition. ‘The harsh terrain led to several retirements due to mechanical and racing incidents,’ says Bowler. ‘But despite this, the team’s Defenders finished every stage and continue to impress with the performance, durability and robustness of a production road car.’ As well as challenging the vehicles, drivers and navigators, the event’s format asked questions of their service crews – who only had short windows of opportunity between stages to work on the Defenders, which in addition were placed in
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DRIVEN
BENTLEY BENTAYGA 4.0 S Reigning Luxury SUV of the Year gets the green lane treatment as we set out to prove whether its off-road ability remains as stellar when faced with wild moorland terrain A FEW YEARS AGO, the people at Lamborghini gave us an Urus to play with for a week and, naturally, we took it laning. So when Lambo’s stablemates over at Bentley gave us a Bentayga to play with… well, it would have been rude not to, really, wouldn’t it? We had already driven a Bentayga off-road on a press event and been impressed by the agility it demonstrated – not just ‘for such a big vehicle’ but full stop. The vehicle can be optioned with an All-Terrain Specification pack which adds another four off-road positions to the drive mode dial, allowing it to perform breathtaking manoeuvres on the sort of ground you wouldn’t even consider trying to tackle; the work is done largely by clever electronics, of course, but even on 22” road tyres the Bentayga we drove back then was capable of retaining its control, and its poise, in frankly hair-raising conditions.
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Of course, that’s not what people buy them for. But what this kind of exercise demonstrates is that for the gentler sort of everyday off-tarmac work a Bentagya can expect to take on in the course of its life, it’s very well within its comfort zone. If its limits are in the stratosphere somewhere, you can be that much more confident of not flying too close to the sun. This provided us with some reassurance as we set out on the lanes in the sort of weather that makes you wish you’d stayed at home. Well, it didn’t make us wish we’d stayed at home, it just made us more thankful than ever that we were doing it in a Bentayga. The Bentayga in question was an S model, described by Bentley as ’an SUV with attitude, featuring bold, eye-catching design, inside and out.’ You can get it in hybrid form but ours had the twin-turbocharged 4.0-litre V8
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petrol engine – the same one as the Urus, albeit here tuned for ‘just’ 542bhp and 568lbf.ft. The difference between them couldn’t be more pronounced, though. The Urus is by no means a handful to drive, though it does always feel like it would rather be racing: the Bentagya by contrast is like a fourwheel butler enquiring as to how sir wishes to proceed. And if sir would like to proceed up that bank over there, with one wheel lifting ever further from the ground, then sir will get his wish. We’re used to testing vehicles by pulling stunts like this (it used to be a test of suspension and tractability, now it’s mainly a test of electronics) and we’re equally used to baling out way before anything dramatic happens. Even pick-up trucks with live back axles and locking diffs have made heavy weather of the wheel-up test.. We’re not saying the Bentayga didn’t need a bit of coaxing. It took a few attempts, as we got the measure of how much gas we needed to be pouring in, and of course we were nervous about spanking any of its bodywork into the ground. But actually, it kept itself well away from danger on the savagely uneven ground and, with the right amount of persistence on the loud pedal, it eased itself into position. Tyre marks on the ground from where we were keeping the revs going? None. This doesn’t sound as dramatic as it felt, and nor did it look it. Though when a young National Trust ranger came past in her D-Max, her eyes almost popped out of her head. And in truth it is indeed not everyday that you go out
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on patrol and come across a £182,300 SUV parked on three wheels at the side of a lane. (But within the lane boundaries, before anybody starts, and doing nothing wrong.) The Bentagya is huge but its agility, manoeuvrability and lightness of touch make it feel smaller. We’ve said? before that at speed on a B-road, it’s more like driving a GTI than an SUV; would it sound ridiculous to use a different version of the same analogy here and say it’s more like driving a traditional off-roader? Certainly, those 22” tyres were more commanding on the wet ground than anything with such low-profile proportions has a right to be – and once again, the vehicle’s suspension managed its weight like a feather being carried aloft on an autumn breeze. The same is the case on everyday trails, too. It’s easy for a 4x4 to be comfortable in the most extreme conditions, you could argue, because you’re going so slowly – fractions of a mile per hour, and small ones at that – that there’s almost no momentum in the suspension movements. Once you’re up to 10-15mph and your wheels are bumping against the ground, that’s when you see how well an SUV rides. The Bentayga’s tyres look like rubber bands on its vast rims. There’s almost no sidewall to soak up the bumps. Yet it’s so supple, so quiet over the rough ground of a typically bumpy moorland lane, it’s like riding on a cushion of air. Which, of course, given what’s in its springs, you are. But that’s not enough. Some vehicles with air suspension ride like a boulder rolling down a scree slope when they’re at off-road height. No such trouble for Bentley, though – which, we presume, is a result of the expertise you get for your money. The expertise and the quality of hardware, of course. What would it take to defeat the Bentayga? Deep mud, we’d assume – though only the kind that would defeat anything else on similarly smooth and low-profile tyres. And we wouldn’t fancy it much in deep ruts, mainlybecause of how vulnerable those alloys look, or of course any sort of conditions that would damage its body. A sunken lane, for example, or one with tightly encroaching trees. If you can afford to own one, you can quite possibly afford not to care, but don’t let’s go down that dark alley: the clear fact is that the Bentayga is so capable, so competent but also so expensive, the limits of its ability are set by how far you can go before the risk of damaging it comes too close for comfort. Comfort, that. The Bentayga has a lot. Even more than when it was first launched, thanks to an early facelift that addressed its somewhat crude original styling and also brought new seating with greater cabin space than ever. And there’s a wonderfully British reserve to it that takes the feeling of wellness to new heights; some luxury SUVs bash you over the head with how posh they are, or how clever, or how high-tech, and as a result they can come across as variously gaudy, crass or tiresome. The Bentagya simply allows you to notice for yourself that you’re enjoying a driving experience that’s at once engaging and also beautifully serene – and in magnificent surroundings. Like so many of the best things in life, it’s hard to put your finger on why it’s so right – you just know that it really, really is. A good sign of a great vehicle is that it takes everything in its stride. That the Bentayga does that almost seems to go without saying, yet we’re talking about a luxury vehicle with no traditional off-road hardware. For such a vehicle to be able to do it at all is remarkable. For it to be able to do it so well, and with such contemptuous ease, is extraordinary.
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POINT OF DEPARTURE Jeep’s stripped-back Rubicon concept comes with a dollop of special forces image
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hen you look Words: Graham Scott Pictures: Jeep at the pictures of this Jeep Wrangler 4xe Departure concept, what is the first thing that comes to mind? Well, okay, after bacon. Yup, and you may be right, your mother never did love you. But after that? Admittedly this massive lump of metal is not exactly meant as a Rorschach test, but it’s so striking it probably does bring up an instant reaction. To me, and I’m happy to share this with you because we’re all friends and I know I can trust you implicitly, it makes me think of those photos of special forces buggies. Stripped back, armed to the teeth with .50cal, Javelins and NLAW missiles. (That last one, the anti-tank missile, always makes me think the designer was imagining his in-laws when he built it.) Kit hanging all over it but ready to reach as it’s hung on Molle system hoops. No doors or windows to allow rapid ingress and egress. You of course might just see yet another variation on Jeep’s latest theme of concept electric off-roaders. And in doing so you’d be correct. Companies like Polaris make those SF desert buggies and, as far as we know, Jeep doesn’t. Instead it makes vehicles like this, that are obviously seen as a bit whimsical, a bit out there, like the extreme outfit a model wears on the catwalk, which bears only a passing resemblance to something the company might make for the high street. Only in this case the vehicle is not built for the high street, it’s built for the great outdoors. breeze ruffles your Patagonia wardrobe additions. Like, well, Regent’s Park or Central Park. My personal issue, having been outdoors in 4x4s For someone in Utah or Montana this probably in various parts of the planet, is that sometimes makes more sense than someone in Surrey or the you want and sometimes you desperately need a West Midlands. Want to try to get away from it refuge from the outside. all near Guildford? Want to park this up and leave Think hail storm, a sudden cold front, unbearait in Birmingham? (If it makes you feel better, ble heat, dust swirling, strange noises and growlreplace those names with towns of your choice.) ing in the undergrowth. Or I could have just said The issue is Jeep’s direction of travel of removone word: midges. To me these concepts see the ing the barriers between outside and inside. Oh natural world through a Disney filter. And, maybe, yes, you and Nature, as one, breathing in God’s if you’re just out for the day with your family, and air, listening to the tweeting birds, while a gentle
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you have food and drink on board and you’re not too far from ‘civilisation’ then this would be fun. A day’s rock-crawling in Utah for example. But I don’t see serious outdoors people driving rigs like this unless they had some more serious back-up. But maybe I’m just being a fun sponge. Tell you one thing though, and a sign of how things are changing. I’ve just read the entire press release and in the first line there’s a throwaway mention of ‘PHEV’ and that’s it, that’s the last you hear about what powers this vehicle. If you like
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while bringing plug-in greenness and massive off-road ability to the rockiest trails
the grunt of a V8 then this particular Wrangler is not for you, even though the electric motors do deliver mighty amounts of torque from the first touch of the pedal. But what you do get is an extremely rugged-looking 4x4 put together by the JPP by Mopar design team. And let’s not quibble, this is designed with real off-roading in mind. For starters there’s a mild but useful 2in lift kit with Bilstein remote-reservoir shocks so they can handle heat and extreme terrain. Custom rock
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sliders add more underbody protection and there’s been serious thought given to approach and departure angles. At the front there’s a modified Rubicon bumper with a Warn winch and above that a tubular grille guard not only protects the grille but it also hinges down flat to make a seat perch. Perfect for strapping the children to when they’re being annoying and you want to check the depth of that ford. Just kidding, you’d use a stick like you always do. To test the depth I mean.
At the rear there’s some definitely original thinking in terms of the departure angle. Given the name of the concept perhaps that’s not surprising. The spare wheel and carrier are obviously mounted up high but what you can’t see from the photos is the ability of this whole caboodle to swing through 180 degrees. Now, why would you want to do that? Because when the tyre is flipped to the rear you have more room behind the back seats and when it’s flipped inwards you have even better
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he phrase ‘lockdown project’ has come out of nowhere and gained for itself a certain level of mystique in the car world. Typically, it refers to something thrown together with not a lot of planning by a bloke who ran for his life into his garage one morning three and a bit years ago in a desperate
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bid to overcome the boredom that had suddenly descended upon him. Needless to say, quite a few lockdown projects ended up turning into projects themselves. You know, the ‘how in God’s name am I supposed to undo this mess’ kind. But at the other end of the scale, we’ve seen some truly beautiful vehicles
that would still be lying in a corner today if it weren’t for the workshop time lockdown gave their owners. This 110 is somewhere in the middle. There’s nothing messy about it at all, let’s be straight with that – but its owner, Mark Woodland, readily admits that it was the result of getting very bored
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Life after lockdown
During the dark days of lockdown, it was hard to believe it would ever again be possible to go overlanding. But while some of us were fretting, others were building trucks to make the most of it the moment the world opened back up Words: Tom Alderney Pictures: Vic Peel
while the country was shut away behind doors doing a whole lot of nothing. It’s not a resto, and it’s not one of those offroad projects that sets out to take on the world. Though it was conceived with the idea of taking on the world in another sense. ‘We were going to go travelling in Morocco when Covid was finished,’
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explains Mark. ‘But then my son went and got a job in Australia, so that never happened.’ As a result, since being turned into a slick overland camper the 110 has been to Wales once and Silverstone twice. If you’re going to go and watch a grand prix, having a vehicle you can live in is not a bad idea – just ask anyone who’s
queued to get out of the car parks there on the Sunday night. So this is a 110 that’s kind of all dressed up with nowhere to go. Maybe that’s unfair, but it certainly is all dressed up. Mark had loads of ideas when he started work on the vehicle – which presents itself as an interesting blend
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Vacation Vocation A team of students at Skoda’s Vocational School in Czechia were given the opportunity to do anything they wanted with a new Enyaq iV. The result was an all-electric, all-wheel drive adventure wagon for explorers who want to go off-road without going off-grid Words: Graham Scott Pictures: Skoda
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magine giving students a Skoda Enyaq iV and then telling them they can do anything they like to it. Students at some UK establishments would probably have it burning furiously within minutes. But not 29 students at Skoda’s Vocational School in the Czech Republic. Although what they’ve done can seem almost as scary to some people. What the students were given is a fully electric, all-wheel drive SUV with an impressive list of equipment – in fact the Enyaq iV 80x Sportline model. With electric motors on both axles you’ve got some potential to create a go-anywhere, get-away-from-it-all vehicle so you can go off-grid – assuming you can recharge of course. That’s not quite the route the students took, however. Instead they’ve gone down the always-on, always-connected route that would be the opposite of what many people would consider desirable. But they’re young, ambitious and smart. And the ‘Roadiaq’ as they call it clearly demonstrates the kind of thinking that leads not necessarily to a clear mind and fresh air, but will lead to promotion. Or you could look at it another way – it’s their answer to getting away since they simply have to be permanently connected wherever they are. And if you have to attend a Teams meeting, maybe sitting in the back of this vehicle by a lake somewhere is better than sitting in your hutch at the office. Of course, there is some dreaming rather than reality involved along the way. Anyone who was a student or has one in the family will look at the photos of the interior and think: ‘It won’t look like that for long.’ We all know it will be filled with pizza boxes, odd sweet wrappers, old underwear, random empty bottles and a mysterious pub mascot within about three minutes of any student entering the vehicle. Not forgetting the traffic cone. But in our concept world, reality is a much more professional space. What we have is not student accommodation but rather ‘a multifunctional mobile-office camper’. So, given a green light and a blank page, what did the students put in there? For starters they made ‘there’ rather bigger. As you can see, the roofline has been raised, by about 35cm (a bit more than a foot, to use
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Pure Polish spirit The Rallye Breslau is sometimes known as the Dakar of Europe. Pitting a 220-strong field against a landscape of forest, dunes and swamps, it’s a fearsome test of man and machine alike. And this year, on the eve of its 30th anniversary, a partnership between the organisers and Ultra4 Europe put Poland more firmly on the off-road map than ever before Words: Tom Alderney Pictures: RBI Sport
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n Britain, the general public’s perception of motorsport is that it begins and ends with Formula 1. Despite this, more or less everyone has heard of the Dakar Rally – even if they couldn’t name anyone who’s ever taken part, and probably don’t know that it hasn’t gone anywhere near Dakar for years. The Rallye Breslau, on the other hand, is almost completely unheard of outwith off-road circles. Yet the event known as Europe’s Dakar has been going since 1995 and grown into a major international undertaking, with support from some of the world’s top names in cross-country racing. The first Breslau saw 35 cars, 20 motorcycles and 5 trucks take on a route starting in Munich. Since then, the starting point has moved several times, the route has visited Germany, Poland, Romania and Bulgaria (the latter is home to the organisers, RBI Sport) and the field has grown massively, adding classes for quads and side-by-sides as well as Extreme and Discovery categories alongside the main Cross-Country rally. The big news for 2023, however, was the addition of an Ultra4 class. Following a tie-up between the organisers, the Breslau has become part of the Ultra4 Europe championship, with 10 of these extreme off-road racing machines taking part.
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ON TOP OF THE WORLD The Karakorum Highway, which joins Pakistan to China via the towering mountain range after which it’s named, is the world’s highest major road. With the landscapes it travels through, not to mention the sort of conditions you’re likely to encounter on the road itself, it’s definitely a good option to be aboard an off-road vehicle – though what you really need to do is get off the main road and start exploring some proper terrain… Words: Usman Ansari Pictures: Usman Ansari / ORAD
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he Off Road Adventure Club (ORAD) is a Pakistani 4x4 organisation with many years’ experience roaming the length and breadth of its home country. Pakistan is a very varied land whose terrain is, in some parts, among the wildest in the world; this includes the mystical Karakorum mountains. A high-level range through which the historical Silk Route passed in days of yore, the Karakorum is a region of geological upheaval where India and Eurasia are literally crashing into each other. Here, the frontiers of Pakistan, China, Afghanistan and Tajikistan are little more than a hundred miles apart. A previous expedition here had traced the route of the famous Karakorum Highway (KKH), which ultimately leads to the border with China at the Khunerjab Pass. This time, however, club leaders Mujahid Zafar, Rana Jawad and Sohail Sarwar were keen to get even more off the beaten track. So the route was set for Skardu, the high-altitude jumping-off point for treks into the Karakorum ranges, and explore the dramatic terrain all around it. The trip took place in the height of summer, which is no bad time to get away from the oppressive, stifling heat of the Punjab plain. Some members of the convoy had come even further, from sweltering Karachi, while one had travelled from as far afield as Dubai – which is hotter still. Skardu may be hidden away in the mountains, but getting to it still means a lengthy yomp along the KKH itself. Fifteen or so years ago,
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