e tested eight 4x4s on and off-road this year from
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the EC and Japan: the three we shortlisted are all quite different from each other. The Daihatsu Fourtrack is imported as a passenger vehicle and then converted to commercial use; an externally mounted spare wheel makes more of its small cargo space. With a wide gate and long lever movements gear changing lacked pre cision, but the excellent torque output from its 2.76-litre charge-cooled diesel engine minimised the frequency of gear changes.
The Daihatsu is among the quickest off-road vehicles we have tested but far from the most stable.
If you had to head out into the bush you couldn't do much better than a Land Rover Defender 90. As with early models, Rover continues to use an aluminium body on a steel ladder-frame chassis, but it has finally dispensed with the cab's middle seat. Permanent four-wheel drive, a two-speed transfer box and centre locking differential combine with a gutsy 2.5-litre turbo-diesel and Range Rover-type coil springs to take you almost anywhere you need to go.
Four-wheel drive limits steering lock, however, and on metaled roads the heavy steering damping does not provide much feedback. Mechanically the Defender lives up to modern day requirements, but the utility interior belongs to a previous age.
Biggest is not necessarily best, unless it's a 4x4 TurboDaily panel van. The 40.10W is in a league of its own with a 4,050kg GVW offering a genuine 1.5-tonne payload, more than a Land Rover though less than vehicles like a Unimog.
2.5-litre Iveco diesel drives through a five-speed Fiat gearbox and two-speed Borg Warner transfer box. Two-wheel drive for normal on-road use allows a high cruising speed, but large 7.50 R16 tyres do little to enhance steering control and it's more at home offroad. A 8.5m3 high-roof body and extra ground clearance make it taller than the standard road-going version, and we wonder how stable it might be loaded to the roof — maybe that is why Iveco includes an inclinometer.
Priced at about £30,000 it costs more than twice as much as the Land Rover but then it can carry almost 2.5 times as much. Add this ability to its impressive showing off-road, and it's the TurboDaily 4x4 that gets our vote.