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Edline - Club politics need setting aside if we’re going to save the lanes
The Greatest Land Rover Show It’s almost upon us - time to head for Stoneleigh for the best show in the Landy calendar
Merc Pick-Up Unveiled - People have been talking about it for a long time... but who who can honestly say that when Mercedes unveiled its new X-Class double-cab, it would be riding on 35” Simex-pattern tyres?
Llanerchindda’s GLASS donation - The 4x4-friendly Mid-Welsh guest house puts its money where its mouth is by chipping in to help save our green lanes
Odyssey Challenge - Tough conditions prevail in the Battle of Buildwas
4x4 Calendar - The playdays are still coming thick and fast - and as we head into winter, so is the mud...
Products - All manner of accessories for everything from old-school Jeeps to the very latest expedition trucks. Plus, of course, aged Land Rovers needing help with a broken transfer case
Long-Range Shogun Sport - It might not be the most obvious choice for an expedition truck. But then, the Mitsubishi Shogun Sport probably didn’t strike you as an off-roader waiting for a seven-seat conversion either...
Heavy-Duty 90 - Land Rover's last proper farm truck wasn’t designed for people who worry if they dent it. But Shaun Myerscough worries even less - because it’s now impossible to dent his in the first place
The Proper Way Down - Rob and Ally Ford set off for a life-changing trip from Britain to South Africa... which turned out to be more life-changing than even they expected
VW Golf Alltrack - Quick test of a car-derived 4x4 that’s not made for playdays but is perfect in the sort of conditions where all-wheel drive is something you need, not want
Ssangyong Musso Tested - The new budget option in the pick-up market arrives in the UK - and we’re first with the full story. Will a new engine and gearbox make the coil-sprung Musso into a truck to reckon with?
Factfile: Jeep Renegade - It might be based on the same underpinnings as the Fiat 500X, but the Renegade is now the highest-selling Jeep of all time -and for that alone it deserves your attention
Jeep Cherokee Suspension - As our Cherokee prepares to be dragged back out of the darkened shed it’s been sitting in for all these years, we look back to how the project began
Monstered CJ7 - ATOR Throwback looks at one of the most exciting modded vehicles we’ve ever featured - a gorgeous Jeep CJ7 that could knock'em dead on the King’s Road then winch its way through the grottiest woods in Wales
Discovery 3 Off-Road - Prompted by the recent unveiling of the Discovery 5, our second Throwback feature looks at the event when we experienced its predecessor off-road for the very first time
Roadbook - This is a beauty - we’re off to the Lake District, where we joined in with a diverse group of Land overs on an equally diverse ground of lanes
4x4s for Sale - Back by popular demand, our small ads are a gallery of great trucks that could soon be yours!
Next Month - The January issue of Total Off Road is going to feature tests on three different pick-up trucks - plus stories about a Hi-Lux to reckon with an one of the most gorgeous Wranglers of all time
Having been doing this job for the thick end of a quarter of a century, there’s a pattern I’ve seen repeated over and over again in the 4x4 club scene.Which is that when a club is thriving, it’s down to the efforts of a very small number of people.
I don’t want to go down the ‘unsung heroes’ route with this, because most times everyone in the club knows who these people are. But all too often, a club is just a few dedicated individuals whose willingness to take on way more than their fair share of the work shores up everyone else.
Down the years, I’ve been astonished by the amount of sheer graft some people have been willing to put in.The Scottish Hillrally wouldn’t have happened without the others who came on board to help Ian Sykes, for example - but his stories of endless days on site (the stages were a four-hour round trip from his home) and hassles with everything from paperwork to bunting were exhausting just to listen to.
I think of Neil Whitford, too, whose prodigious efforts more or less defined the All Wheel Drive Club’s involvement in challenge events, certainly as far as it was perceived by the outside world.
When you show up to an event, nine out of ten times it’ll be the same guy who applied for the permit.Who towed the club trailer on site.Who was up there with a chainsaw last weekend making sure you don’t go home with a trashed roof.
It’ll be the same guy who’s out sweeping mud off the access road while you’re having dinner.Taking a 30-mile detour on the way home to drop off all the stakes in the lockup he pays for himself. Getting calls at 3am because the lock-up’s been broken into and the club’s generator’s been nicked. And, quite possibly, getting it in the neck from other club members for not spending enough (of his own money) on a strong enough chain for the club’s generator.
Am I exaggerating? Possibly. If you’re the guy doing all the work, you’ll know. If you’re the guy with the big gob on the club forum (and guess who spends two hours a night maintaining it),you sure as hell won’t.
This points up an ugly truth that’s also been evident to me for as long as I’ve been involved in the 4x4 world. Club politics.
How often has the guy who does all the work ended up being hounded out of his club by people calling him a glory hunter? How many clubs have been split down the middle when half the members decide to go their own way because of one bloke’s ego? How many times has a potentially thriving set of like-minded off-roaders been scattered to the four winds because too few of them were active enough to stop a little Hitler from wrecking it all?
Ours is a minority interest, so clubs don’t have lots of members.Which means that if there’s a power struggle, there’s not enough weight in the rank and file to stop if from tearing the club apart.
When our hobby is constantly under attack by another kind of little Hitlers, that’s just unbelievably tragic. Every 4x4 club needs to be an ambassador for our sport - and, at the same time, the front line of defence against haters and antis.
Yet even when it comes to the Green Lane Association itself, I’ve seen stuff on forums that just makes me want to bash my head against my desk.This is another organisation in which one man, Dale Wyatt, does far more than his fair share of work, but it’s also one which, more than any other, desperately needs unity.
I’ve no interest at all in taking sides in anyone’s backyard squabbles. But by God, can you imagine how the lane fascists must be rubbing their hands with delight every time they see us calling each other names while they’re busy plotting to have us banned from the countryside?
Every single individual who’s willing to get involved in the battle to save our rights of way is a resource to be treasured. If they don’t get on with each other, they should all go and stand together by the closure notices on the Ridgeway,Walna Scar, Beadlam Rigg, Sarn Helen or Stanage Edge.
Want to see more of those? Then keep calling each other names.The first person to bury the hatchet really will be one of those unsung heroes of the club scene -and they might well be the one who saves our hobby from annihilation.
Alan Kidd, Founding Editor
