May 2019

NZ4WD

The magazine for 4WD Sport and lifestyle

NZ4WD3 min read
Clean Up OUR Act!
The tone of her voice alerted me straight away. This wasn’t going to be one of my wife Delia’s usual mid-to-late afternoon ‘how-was-your-day-and-when-can-we-expect-you-home?’ calls. “Have you heard,” she asked. “It’s awful. There’s been a shooting at
NZ4WD1 min readAutomotive
Countdown Is On For Suzuki Extreme 4x4 Challenge
The countdown has begun for the 2019 Suzuki Extreme 4x4 Challenge. The day is Sunday, the date April 28. The Suzuki Challenge is an annual made-for-television 4x4 Trials showcase created and hosted by local 4x4 Trials guru Dan Cowper and his business
NZ4WD1 min readAutomotive
Suzuki Marks Vitara Milestone With Upgrade
Suzuki has upgraded its Vitara five-door for 2019. The updated model can be distinguished from the front by a vertical chrome accent/ five-slotted grille plus changes to the lower sections of both the front and rear bumpers, and from the back by new
NZ4WD1 min read
Ironman 4x4 Air Compressors
Ironman 4x4 portable air compressors offer a convenient solution to re-inflate your tyres after you have ‘aired down’ to drive off-road. Once you are ready to hit the bitumen for the trip home or into town you need to be able to re-inflate your tyres
NZ4WD2 min readAutomotive
Superwinch®
Off Road Racing North Island Championship; Round 1 Hosted by All Terrain Racing Club at Makarau. Short Course and Enduro Course. www.oranz.co.nz Suzuki Extreme 4x4 Challenge; Back for the 5th year this is the only event of its kind in NZ and is crea
NZ4WD5 min read
Home On The Range
As regular readers will know by now, at the end of last year, we had agreed to sell our house in Auckland and move to the South Island, the true Mecca for Overlanding in New Zealand. Whilst we had done many trips away over the years, this was the big
NZ4WD4 min readAutomotive
New Jimny impresses
Typical! What started out as another muggy, overcast – but dry – day in Auckland quickly morphed into one in which the sky darkened and the first fat, heavy raindrops splotched onto the windscreen of the trusty Terrano as I turned into the driveway a
NZ4WD2 min readAutomotive
Mahindra – Back For More?
Mahindra’s new NZ distributor is an Auckland-based start-up called DDW, a company targeting the local SUV and Ute sectors with a range of new vehicles, financing, warranty and back up for comparable prices to an eight-year-old second-hand from Japan.
NZ4WD3 min readAutomotive
Raised Wrangler
Want the trickest-looking Jeep Wrangler Rubicon this side of a Utah ‘rock garden?’ Easy. To show you just what you can achieve with a Wrangler, the official Jeep parts book, plus a ‘parts & accessories’ budget of a little over $33K, local importer Je
NZ4WD4 min read
Chasing ghosts... Macetown
Following 4x4Explorer on Facebook and knowing that I was in the Queenstown area, Scott Gray gave me a call asking if I would like some company and offering to drive down from Timaru. The answer was a strong YES and the next day, Scott and Steve Bate
NZ4WD5 min read
Ahuroa Fire Brigade Fundraiser 2019
Started 18 years ago by the Rodney club the event had been held on November each year, but reverted back to March a couple of years back and so it was again for 2019. Ahuroa is a small community in the Rodney district with Puhoi to the south-east and
NZ4WD3 min readAutomotive
‘The (Recovery) kit I carry’ – Richard Soult 4x4Explorer
The type and amount of Recovery equipment that you carry depends on a number of factors. Included in that list are; the difficulty of the tracks that you will be driving, the likelihood of getting stuck, and the number of vehicles that you will be tr
NZ4WD2 min read
Lan-cor Ground Anchors
Ground anchors are a great idea, allowing you to winch yourself out of trouble when there isn’t a tree or other suitable anchoring point in sight. But carrying around a large, bulky ground anchor isn’t always practical. Enter the locally conceived an
NZ4WD3 min read
Recovery Gear
When your vehicle’s caught in a torrential downpour on a steep mountain track, stuck in knee deep mud or bogged in an isolated desert in sweltering temperatures, the reliability, performance and durability of your recovery gear is paramount. Don’t tr
NZ4WD2 min read
Cookes’ Snatch Strap
Cookes first introduced their Snatch Master 4WD eight-tonne Recovery Strap to New Zealand over 25 years ago. After listening to feedback from 4WD club members, Cookes worked with a New Zealand webbing manufacturer to develop a high quality, high stre
NZ4WD2 min readAutomotive
Recovery Gear From Ironman 4x4
Getting stuck may now be something you aim to do, just so you can put your Ironman 4x4 recovery gear to good use! Ironman 4x4 products have been developed in the harshest proving ground in the world – Australia, and have been the first choice for Au
NZ4WD7 min read
Into The Sahara Part 2
Readers of my previous article will know that we visited Morocco during what turned out to be a one-in-ten-year rainy period. And though by the time the events described in this article took place the rains had cleared and the oueds (which means norm
NZ4WD4 min read
Dannevirke Explore Part 1
Travelling once again with Gillian and Ashley, the first leg of this trip was to travel from Woodville to Dannevirke, using Pinfold Rd and Top Grass Rd to stay as close as possible to the Ruahine ranges, exploring the road ends along the way. Being q
NZ4WD3 min read
How NOT To Muddy The Waters!
“We don’t know how lucky we are, mate. We don’t know how lucky we are!” as John Clarke, aka Fred Dagg, sang in 1975. Back then, four wheeling in New Zealand was relatively simple with the plantation forests managed by the NZ Forest Service and most o
NZ4WD4 min read
In The Wheel Tracks Of ‘Burt!
A weekend event called. Yay, road trip, let’s go south! Wake up the camp fridge – it’s midsummer! Off to Otago, nice, lots to see, places to go. Some good 4WDing, though I probably won’t be able to get too serious alone and well laden. Tally Ho, acro
NZ4WD4 min read
The Desert defended
For me, getting to this Desert Defenders Offroad Club-organised event is a four-hour bomb North on SH1 early on a Saturday morning. I get a lot of joy seeing the other weekend warriors heading off on their chosen leisure time option, it doesn’t matte
NZ4WD2 min readScience & Mathematics
Win A Set Of Kumho 4x4 Tyres
Our monthly feature showcases 4WDs doing just about anything except rolling over or burning! We will award a grand prize of a set of four Kumho 4x4 tyres in the NZ4WD Annual issue. This contest is open to all readers who are not professional photogra
NZ4WD3 min readAutomotive
Young Racers Growing Like Weeds
New Zealand’s junior off-road racers are coming of age at an alarming rate. The Kiwitruck classes seem to have stabilised around the originally proposed J and M types: non-shift, and a proper gearbox, manual shift, up to 250cc engine. With a new wave
NZ4WD4 min readAutomotive
The Future Of 4WDing
Many of the modern four-wheel drives coming onto the market these days lack a low ratio transfer case and instead are fitted with 6-8 and even 10 speed gearboxes with a very low first gear which is intended to be used only when the vehicle is off roa

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