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ROADTEST BEDFORD BRAVA
Page 54
Page 55
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liner should be a added to any options list for the Brava buyer.
• DRWELINE
Brava's driveiine starts with the Isuzu 2.2-litre naturally-aspirated indirectinjection diesel engine. Isuzu manufactures a number of different diesel engines for automotive, industrial and marine applications, and the example fitted to the Brava is one of its smallest automotive units. Most Isuzu engines we have come across have been reliable, sturdy units that are well designed, with innovative features, Our only criticism is that the units sometimes bear the mark of mass production in the way they are finished. The Bedford's power unit, however, has none of the rough finish of some of its bigger sisters, and the engine bay is accessible, with the ancilliaries within reach.
The unit drives a five-speed allsynchromesh gearbox with a floormounted gear lever. A conventional propellor shaft takes the drive back to the differential unit, which is mounted in a live rear axle.
• PERFORMANCE
Svelte looks, and rally-style wheelarch blimps flatter only to decieve on the Brava, and its 39kW (52.5hp) diesel engine is hard-pressed to power all 2.45 tonnes of Bedford up to the legal limit.
The pickup's acceleration is a disappointment when compared with vehicles Like the Ford P100. There is a difference of more than 10 seconds in the 64-96km/h (40-60mpin) acceleration times of the two vehicles, and the other acceleration time comparisons are equally damning for the Brava.
We get many phone calls at Commercial Motor's offices from distraught pickup drivers who are about to be taken to court on a speeding charge. Hoping we will help their defence they ask: "How fast was it when you tested it?" They seem quite disappointed when we tell them that even the laden top speed was well in excess of the legal limit. Perhaps the low engine power on the Brava will save operators money in reduced fines as well as reduced fuel bills.
To allow reasonable acceleration when loaded, the Brava has a very low first and second gear which means there is a large gap between second and third gear. At around 4,000rpm in second gear the sound of the change to third is a hurried click-clack as the lever is moved, followed by a deflating whumph, as the engine revs drop. A hurried recovery of those revs is almost impossible, and it is only after several seconds of foot-to-the-floor motoring that the faltering, fluttering engine note returns to normal.
The Bedford can just about keep up with normal traffic flows when fully laden, Below: The bench seat only has two seat belts; the space between the two seats could have been used to mount a better hand brake than the umbrella-toe provided.
but the engine has to be used to the full, which rather defeats the object of having a lazy diesel engine in the first place. Our test vehicle had two faults, which may be reduced after a service. The first was a lot of smoke from the exhaust pipe, especially after hard acceleration. This black smoke annoyed following drivers, and was most anti-social. The second fault was the very loud tickover of the engine on start
ing from cold. The unit is fitted with an automatic enrichment device, which would account for some of the noise, but the crack of each firing cycle of the engine could clearly be heard on first starting.
• ECONOMY
The trade-off for good performance is frequently fuel economy, and as the Brava's performance was poor, one would expect fairly good economy. In fact the Brava is the most economical one-tonne pickup of our comparison group; it even beats the excellent Peugeot 504GL with its 2.3-litre IN diesel. Only the Volkswagen Caddy, by virtue of its 530kg payload, managed to beat the economy of the frugal Isuzu unit.
• HANDLING
Most Japanese pickups isolate the wheels from the body with a simple live-axle rear suspension, and a coil-sprung wishbone set-up at the front. A lot is asked of this sort of suspension, especially when the pickup is loaded to a gross weight of around 2.5 tonnes.
We have criticised such set-ups in the past for a variety of faults, which include: forward pitching caused by unmatched spring rates front and rear; rear-wheelsteer caused by insufficient damping, and too lower tyre pressures; and over-hard ride when unladen; and, also, tail-happy handling.
The Brava's suspension follows the basic pattern set by the above, with the exception of better location, and torsion bar springing at the front. The Brava's front wheels are carried by double wishbones, with telescopic dampers mounted through the middle. There is a location rod that runs from the front of the chassis to the outer edge of the lower wishbone, , and the two front wheels are tied together with a substantial-looking anti-roll bar. At the rear there is the usual live axle, with two-stage semi-elliptic leaf springs. When unladen. the pickup will deflect only the three main leaves on the leaf springs, but the addition of a load in the back causes the thick "helper" spring to come into play, which increases the spring rate. The rear also has telescopic dampers.
While the Brava's suspension could never be described as perfect, it is certainly a vast improvement on other pickup suspensions we have tested. There is still a feeling that the vehicle is on tip-toes when being driven unladen on wet roads, but the suspension is soft enough to take a lot of the bumps without sending the backend sliding round to the front in snap oversteer.
Although the suspension rates are hard when the Brava is unladen, there is none of the pitching we have come across in the past. The two different suspension systems have been tuned to the point where, if their frequencies are not identical, then they are certainly well matched.
When the Brava is loaded up to full gross weight, the vehicle will steer itself a little, even when the tyre pressures are correct, but there is none of the floating sensation felt with other pickups. The damping is just right, allowing the springs to do their job, but quickly restraining any bouncing or wallowing. The vehicle does suffer from oversteer characteristics like all its brethren, but the oversteer occurs much later with the Brava, and it is a slow process that could be corrected by most drivers.
• INTERIOR
Most of the Brava's interior is covered in grey plastics of differing composition. While this material certainly does the job Left: The separate switches for each lighting function are fiddly.
Below left: Substantial-looking wishbones and a location bar ensures the torsion bar-sprung front suspension is adequately located.
and is easy to clean, it is as uninspiring and unimaginative as cold turkey sandwiches after Christmas Day. After discovering that the lsuzu sandwich box in the middle of the wheel is in fact the horn button, the driver finds that the controls descend into chaos.
On the left of the instrument panel, the windscreen wiper controls could all-tooeasily confuse a driver with a button for each separate function.
On the right, the headlamp controls have a similar mission to muddle, with the exception of the dip switch, which is controlled with a single indicator stalk from the steering column.
The heater controls have the usual Japanese-style logic, and are easy to use. There is a powerful heater, and a threespeed blower that clears the windscreen quickly in the morning.
The radio, however, sets a new low in our experience, being a single band (AM) unit with a ratty little speaker set in front of the passenger. There are few known radio stations on the AM band, and those that are, are better heard in their FM equivalents.
The gearlever is easily available to most popular sizes of Homo sapiens, the glove box is tiny, but at least it has a lock, and there is a reccessed tray on the top of the fascia to store small items. On the Minits side, the Brava has a bench seat, but only two seat belts.
This means that the space in the middle can be regarded only as a receptacle for loaves of bread, small bags of carrots, or as no man's land for warring couples. Either way, it would have been better to give the pickup two totally separate seats, so that short drivers and tall passengers could choose their own seat positions when in the vehicle together.
• SUMMARY
With its excellent fuel consumption, useful payload and moderately comfortable ride by pickup standards, the Brava should have a queue of buyers. A larger engine would be nice, as would a load liner, but the Brava is a workhorse in the best traditions of the pickup.
There are some unanswered questions about the Brava, however, and the most pressing is the longevity of the bodyshell. We have seen some shockingly rusty examples of the KB pickup around, and there is a distinct impression that Japanese pickups look very impressive in the showroom, but soon deteriorate on the road.
Pickups should be manufactured to — in the words of Emperor Hirohito — "endure the unendurable". We wonder whether the massive Isuzu has heeded the word of its former Emperor when designing its vehicles.
D by Andrew English