Rated tow hooks for the FJ40

My 1973 FJ40 came standard with two tow/recovery hooks on the front chassis rails, identical to those on every stock 40 I’ve ever seen. In my early, pre-winch days, I used them to recover numerous fellow drivers using either a heavy rope or a chain. (Hey, I said “early” days.)

When I graduated to a kinetic strap sometime in the 1980s, I remember wondering for the first time just how strong those hooks were. Whenever I asked anyone associated with Toyota, I was simply assured, “Oh, they’re strong enough, don’t worry.”

Later I installed a factory PTO winch, but only ever used single-line pulls with it. After swapping the original three-speed transmission for a four-speed, I never got around to cutting the new transmission tunnel for the lever or swapping in the PTO gear case on the new four-speed. So when I got a new Warn 8274 after a winch test at Overland Journal, I sold the PTO and went electric. By then I’d learned more about, and was employing, double-line pulls, using those hooks as the anchor for the doubled line. Again I found myself wondering about their capacity—and again when I asked around the community I was assured, “Oh, they’re strong enough, don’t worry.”

But, while I didn’t worry per se—by this time I’d subjected them to dozens and dozens of mild to severe pulls and yanks with zero negative effects—I was also doing a lot of instruction by this time, and emphasizing the absolute necessity of using rated equipment for recovery. And the one element in my kit that had no rating were those tow hooks.

Finally I decided to circumvent the issue and add a pair of rated bolt-on shackle mounts to the front bumper—but as I was shopping I chanced upon a set of 10,000-pound rated tow hooks, outwardly identical to the factory hooks, at Cool Cruisers of Texas.

The irony is, I have absolutely no way of knowing if these rated hooks are any stronger than the unrated factory hooks, or even if they are as strong. I contacted Cool Cruisers and was told that no, they had no idea of what, if any, safety factor was built into the 10,000-pound figure—that’s simply the way they get them from the supplier. I must assume that, given our litigious society, the rated hooks are at least good to their stamped capacity. And I can point to that stamp when a student asks me about their capacity—as happened a couple of times with the original ones, when all I could reply was, “Oh, they’re strong enough, don’t worry.”

Geeking out on the authentic jerry can

A female British factory worker welds a copy of a Wehrmacht fuel can in 1942

I’ve written several times on this site (here, for example), and in articles elsewhere, about the original Wehrmacht “jerry” can, now the NATO can, which I still hold to be the best fuel container on the planet. Now someone, specifically a Scottish bloke named Calum, has significantly out-geeked me with a 30-minute documentary (and commentary) on the Wehrmacht fuel can and its subsequent adoption by the British—as well as its inexplicable subsequent cheapening by the Americans as the Blitz can.

There’s stuff in here even I didn’t know. For example, the above screen capture from the film shows that in 1942 the British were already in production with outright copies of the Wehrmacht cans they had found abandoned in the deserts of North Africa. I found the whole thing fascinating; I’m sure you’ll find at least some of it so—and the opening vignette is hilarious. Hat tip to Graham Jackson for finding this.

Jerry can history

Kinetic element in a winch system?

It’s getting impossible to keep up with even a fraction of the 4x4 driving and recovery videos on YouTube, all of them purporting to offer useful, expert advice. Some actually do. Others are wincingly inept, some downright stupidly dangerous.

There are also plenty that fall somewhere in between.

A recent . . . fad, I’ll call it . . . involves inserting a kinetic element, usually a KERR (Kinetic Energy Recovery Rope) into a winch rig, with the aim of reducing shock loads on the winch and winch line, or in some cases to “pre-load” a winch pull.

I was taught never, ever to include a kinetic, or elastic, element in a winch rig. Even without such an element, a component failure in a winching scenario can result in dangerous recoil of the winch line and anything attached to it. When steel winch cables were the norm, this was especially hazardous, as the spiral twist of the cable tended to violently untwist as the cable recoiled, creating a swath of destruction.

As with most of us, I now use synthetic winch line, which significantly reduces (although it does not eliminate) the dangers of a snapped line or broken recovery point. However, I still have never found the need to use an elastic component, while accepting that in certain circumstances it might be useful.

This is not one of them.

This video, by a fellow called Mad Matt, demonstrates the insertion of a KERR in a winch system to prevent the vehicle shown from violently bouncing at the end of the winch line as it winches itself up a steep rock face while the driver attempts to apply power. As demonstrated, one easily sees how the elastic nature of the KERR reduces the shock loading on the winch line.

The operative words here are “as demonstrated,” because the shock that is actually demonstrated is shockingly bad driving skills. Perhaps that was Matt’s aim, but if so he failed to point it out, leading many who watch this video to assume that the correct way to assist one’s winch while being pulled uphill is to apply great gobs of wheel-spinning torque so the vehicle bounces wildly against the winch line.

The entire sequence is completely unnecessary. There is absolutely no reason for the driver to apply any power in this situation; the winch should be doing all the work until the vehicle is back on terrain with adequate traction. If the winch is not powerful enough to do so with a single-line pull, a double-line pull would accomplish it, drawing the vehicle slowly and safely up the slope, eliminating the bouncing and the hazard of the kinetic rope, along with the two extra shackles needed to include it.

In short, whenever possible it is a good idea not to turn your winch rig into a giant slingshot.

Trail Turn Assist, the Rivian "Tank Turn," and other environmentally destructive tricks.

During my test of the new Ford Bronco—a vehicle I liked a lot—I tried out its Trail Turn Assist feature, as you can see demonstrated in the video above. TTA drastically shortens the turning circle of the vehicle by applying the brake to an inside wheel, essentially dragging it through the turn.

Of course, in a normal scenario you wouldn’t be initiating a 360-degree turn such as in my demonstration above, conducted in a heavily used wash and cleaned up afterwards. Its utility would be negotiating a tight maneuver when, say, a boulder threatens the outside corner of the vehicle, or a drop-off threatens the entire vehicle. However, there’s nothing to prevent an owner engaging it simply to show off how tightly he can reverse course. And no matter how briefly one engages it, it will impact the trail.

My approach to driving, or to teaching someone to drive—as with all instructors I know—is, at all times, to try to minimize or eliminate wheel spin, which causes both a loss of traction and control and results in degradation of the surface, particularly in places where multiple vehicles are likely to lose traction. And wheel spin while the vehicle is stationary does more or less precisely the same thing as a locked wheel while the vehicle is moving: It wears away at the substrate, increasing erosion.

I’m not going to claim I would never use TTA if I owned a Bronco, but I would be extremely reluctant to do so.

As potentially damaging as TTA is, it pales before the much-hyped “Tank Turn” the much-hyped Rivian electric pickup can accomplish. By powering both wheels on one side forward and both wheels on the opposite side backward, The Rivian can essentially spin in place. The resulting destruction of the trail is easy to see in the videos produced by the company itself. You can see the entire sequence here.

The Tank Turn “feature” has actually been delayed for an unknown period after the Rivian engineers recognized several issues—including the fact that when the turn is enabled, traction is completely lost. Thus if an owner were to initiate it on a slope, the vehicle would immediately begin sliding downhill.

Rivian will undoubtedly warn that the feature is only to be used on a “closed course,” just as they say for their “Drift Mode,” designed for “advanced drivers wanting to drift their R1T on a closed course.”

Wink, wink.

Sadly such hypocrisy is by no means limited to the Rivian company (see here). Every truck maker loudly proclaims adherence to Tread Lightly practices, while producing advertising material expressly promoting the exact opposite. There are certainly those consumers who are responsible enough to eschew aping the ads, but there are tens—hundreds—of thousands who are not. I see the results every single time I head out on a trail, and it has been getting exponentially worse. Blame it on what you will, but there has been an unmistakable increase in self-centered behavior on public land in the last half decade or so. More litter, more driving completely off trail, more hooning on the trail. These are not the type of people who will respond to a friendly lecture. Yet they are the ones who will scream when severely damaged trails are shut down by overworked and underfunded public lands managers.

Short of funding a sniper division in the BLM, I really don’t have a solution.

There are chocks . . . and chocks (I needed the latter)

Inadequate . . .

Now and then it’s good to be reminded of the laws of physics.

A few weeks back I conducted a training weekend for a lovely couple who had recently purchased a very well-optioned Sportsmobile. They wanted to become familiar with its capabilities (and theirs), to learn recovery techniques, and especially to learn the use of their winch, an accessory new to them both.

We spent the first day, Friday, driving and marshaling, and I think hugely improved the confidence of both of them, in addition to opening their eyes as to just how capable a Sportsmobile can be despite its size.

Saturday was winching day. I’d picked a dead-end bit of trail where we wouldn’t be in anyone’s way who happened to pass. It was a hill steep enough to actually work the winch, but not so steep as to be intimidating. The Sportsmobile was equipped with a Warn 12,000-pound winch and synthetic line. For an 11,000-pound vehicle that’s marginal if one applies the standard one and one-half times GVW formula for speccing a winch’s capacity, but we discussed ways to ameliorate this by running out more line and, especially, rigging a double-line pull whenever possible.

The only trees available were both marginal in size and behind a barbed-wire fence, so I set up my FJ40 as an anchor, facing down the hill at the top of the slope.

It was then I realized I’d forgotten my set of Safe Jack chocks, the substantial ones I normally use for winching. All I had with me were the smaller folding chocks I keep in the vehicle for tire-changing duty and the like. No problem, I figured—I set the folding chocks in front of the front tires of the Land Cruiser, and we lugged a couple substantial rocks to put in front of the rear tires. I was in low range, reverse selected, engine off and parking brake pulled out stoutly.

The first, single-line pull proceeded without drama. The winch did not seem to be working over hard (although I remarked that it was one of the loudest winches I’d ever heard). So we re-rigged for a double-line pull, running the Sportsmobile’s line through a 7P recovery ring linked to one of the 40’s front recovery hooks, and back to the Aluminess bumper of the van. I stood to one side and directed while Emmett sat in the Sportsmobile’s driver’s seat and operated the winch remote. He began to spool in and the van crept slowly up the hill.

For about five feet. Then a front tire happened to hit a bit of a rock ledge I’d failed to notice, perhaps eight inches high. The Sportsmobile came to a halt—but the winch, of course, didn’t.

Even as I was raising my fist to give the “stop!” signal, I turned to see my 40 pulled gently but inexorably over the folding chocks, which collapsed as if they’d been soda cans. Behind them the rocks in front of the rear tires had held, but were themselves being dragged with the vehicle.

The winch stopped, and I signalled Emmett to apply the brake and shift to park, then let out some slack in the winch line.

The Land Cruiser had only moved about eight inches. Had we for some reason continued to power the winch, it would simply have kept on being dragged slowly across the ground; there was no chance of it careening out of control. Nevertheless, it was a good lesson in the force an 11,000-pound vehicle and a roughly 24,000-pound-equivalent double-lined winch can put on a 4,000-pound vehicle, even on a moderate incline. The math is pretty simple.

These would have been better. From Safe Jack.

What could I have done differently? Having the larger and sturdier chocks would have made a difference, as might using big rocks instead of the little chocks. Even putting the rocks we used in front of the front tires, and the small chocks under the rear tires, might have made a difference, as the front of the Land Cruiser was being pulled slightly downward in addition to forward. However, a more secure option would have been to daisy-chain the 40 by its back bumper to the base of one of the trees on the other side of the fence with the endless sling I had on hand, then pull forward until the sling was tensioned, then chock.

A good lesson that there’s no such thing as “enough” experience, and there’s never a time to stop learning.

For much more on the forces involved in winching, please read this.

Safe Jack’s heavy-duty folding chocks are available here.

This is not your father's Land Rover Defender

(Note: A version of this article originally appeared in Wheels Afield, Spring 2021. I’ve expanded it here, and also included some comparisons to two vehicles potential buyers might also consider, the Wrangler Rubicon and the new Ford Bronco, a Badlands version of which I recently tested. Keep firmly in mind that the Defender costs around $15,000 to $20,000 more than the other two with similar spec, due in large part to its technologically more complex, aluminum-intensive unibody construction and all-independent air suspension.)

A line from my test notes reads: If you need a quick 90-mph sprint to scoot past a paint-scouring dust devil charging the highway ahead of you, the new Land Rover Defender is eager to oblige.

I’m willing to bet that’s the first time you’ve read “quick 90-mph sprint” and “Land Rover Defender” in the same sentence.

I also could have included in that sentence terms such as unibody construction, fully-independent air suspension, 14-way memory heated seats, photo-darkening windscreen, panoramic sunroof, 400-watt Meridian sound system, dual-zone climate control . . . but you get the picture. Stepping from the last iteration of the Land Rover Defender into the new one is like going straight from an Underwood typewriter to a MacBook Pro.

As a fan (and owner) of the original Defender, I was one of approximately eight aficionados worldwide who weren’t enraged at the re-invention of the world’s most famous safari vehicle. I knew it was never going to be another bolted-together oxcart an owner could rebuild—and might well have to—under a mango tree in Zambia. It couldn’t be. Times have changed, and so has Land Rover. The company tacitly ceded the expedition, NGO, and insurgent market to Toyota’s bulletproof 70-series Land Cruiser a couple of decades ago.

At the same time, they were never going to retire the name Defender like some star ball player’s jersey number—it is marketing platinum. Thus the new Defender.

And what to make of it? In the glacially extended run-up to its actual introduction, JLR (Jaguar-Land Rover) claimed the new Defender would eclipse its predecessor in comfort, handling, safety, economy, and power, while also surpassing it in off-road ability—no great feat on the first bits, but challenging indeed to simultaneously achieve the latter. In early January 2021 I finally got a 2020 Defender 110 SE all to myself for four days to prove or disprove those claims (press launches are interesting, but minutely orchestrated to show off all the strengths of a product and none of its flaws).

The first official photos of the new Defender elicited a collective “Eew!” from traditionalists. Despite JLR’s references to numerous “stirring evocations” of the original two-box design, modern aerodynamics and aesthetics have melted the shape into a generic form more likely to be mistaken for a Kia Soul than a Series II. By comparison, any Jeep or Bronco owner brought to 2021 from 1966 would instantly recognize either vehicle.

The rounded edges also have the effect of making the new four-door Defender 110 look decidedly smaller than the old one, despite the fact that it is larger in every dimension except height (and even that with the air suspension fully raised). It’s also heavier.

I got used to the unexceptional styling. I did not get used to the “Martha Stewart sample swatch,” as I called it: the strange body-color square stuck in the middle of the greenhouse. I could picture a couple agonizing over the paint choice on their new Defender. “Okay, how about this one? It’s called, um, Gondwana Stone?” (Don’t laugh—that is the actual name for the color on my test vehicle.) Some gloss black Krylon would fix the sample swatch. At least my ride didn’t sport the bizarre, optional Flintstones-lunchbox “side-mounted gear carriers,” which perform the dual function of hampering rearward vision and compromising aerodynamics.

Any sense of disappointment disappears once you slide into the driver’s seat. The new Defender has what is quite simply the most strikingly elegant dash ever put into a production vehicle. The instrument cluster in front of the driver employs all-LED instrumentation, including the “analogue” tach and speedometer—brilliantly crisp and visible in any conditions, and of course programable to display various functions and gauges. The 10-inch touch-screen in the center of the dash, nestled below an upholstered but structural magnesium beam/grab bar spanning the width of the cockpit, actually looks like it belongs there, in contrast to the stuck-on-iPad look of so many; its graphics are sharp, and function, according to my tech-savvy wife, is intuitive. A pod below houses the stubby shift lever and twin climate control/multi-function knobs. There are a few ergonomic glitches—the gear indicator on the shifter is invisible when you’re actually shifting (although there’s a duplicate next to the tach), the low-range button is oddly tiny in comparison to its importance, and identifying the button to convert one of the climate-control dials to a 4x4 drive-mode selector requires a dive into the 490-page owner’s manual. Quibbles, really—I could sit and admire this dash for hours.

By comparison, the current Wrangler dash is pleasingly robust-looking, and major dials are easily read, but it is far less elegant. The new Ford Bronco’s dash pales in comparison; it’s an awkward mix of round and square dials, although the Bronco’s traction-aid buttons are all in a row in the top center of the dash—a brilliant arrangement and more logical than the Defender’s more cryptic placement.

In back there’s comfortable seating and, more important, a completely flat, rubber-matted load bay with the rear seats folded, perfectly rectangular. Owners under five-ten or so will find it comfortable to sleep side by side as a couple, or solo (diagonally) if you’re taller.

Going back to the Wrangler and Bronco: The former suffers from speakers and other structures that intrude into the load space, especially at the back. The latter has a very usable rectangular load bay, but there is a sharp raised shelf where the back seats lie down. The Defender’s load bay wins easily on space—and load carrying as well: Thanks partly to those adjustable air springs, the Defender will carry 600 pounds more than the Wrangler Rubicon, and almost 800 more than the Bronco.

With the power seat adjusted every way to Sunday, and the tilt/telescope wheel positioned, the promised massive improvement in comfort becomes plain. “Land Rover elbow” is officially an affliction of the past. Push-button-start the 395bhp/407lb.ft. Ingenium 3.0-liter inline six, both electrically supercharged and twin-scroll turbocharged, and backed by ZF’s excellent eight-speed transmission, and it’s also clear no Defender owner will ever again be beaten from a stoplight by a furniture-delivery truck. Zero to 60 in 6.5 seconds puts it level with my old 1982 Porsche 911SC. Yet on a 300-mile mixed highway/dirt road trip we managed a bit over 21mpg on the suggested premium fuel. (Base models come with a four-cylinder 2.0-liter with a mere 300 horsepower.) It’s faster than a Bronco with the 330hp 2.7-liter V6, and way faster than a Wrangler with the 285hp 3.6-liter V6. The Defender also delivers its torque much lower in the rpm band than either, which is better for towing and trail performance.

That highway experience would have been sheer fantasy to any early Defender owner. In “Comfort” mode the all-independent, air-sprung suspension lends the ride of a—dare I say it?—Range Rover, with interior noise levels nearly as quiet. At an 80-mph cruise normal conversation is, well, normal. Passing semis in a vicious side wind elicited not a twitch in the steering wheel. Short of JLR’s own premium models it was the most comfortable on-road experience I’ve ever had in a four-wheel-drive vehicle.

The Wrangler, by comparison, exhibits a much firmer ride, looser steering, and obviously more transmitted road noise. The Bronco I reviewed, riding on the 35-inch Goodyear tires of the Sasquatch Package, also rode much more firmly, and displayed enough tire noise at freeway speeds to make conversation difficult—a disappointing revelation.

So: Full marks to Land Rover on transforming the Defender’s comfort, handling, safety, economy, and power. What about off-road performance?

The Defender is built on a new, aluminum-intensive platform called D7x. Engineered to pass something called, alarmingly, the Extreme Event Test (part of which involves driving repeatedly into a six-inch curb at high speed), it also raises the body of the Defender slightly higher that that of Land Rover’s other models. With the air suspension at its tallest setting, ground clearance below the nearly flat underbody is a full 11.5 inches. Approach and departure angles of the 110 are excellent at 38 and 40 degrees. (I much prefer a departure angle greater than the approach angle—if the front end clears you know the back will.) Breakover angle is also good at 28 degrees. These specs all compare favorably with the corresponding Wrangler (43º/37º/26º) and Bronco (44º/37º/23º), especially in departure angle, and the Defender’s wading depth of 35 inches beats them both (Wrangler, 30”, Bronco 33.5”). Additionally, put the Defender’s Terrain Response selector in Wade Mode and it raises the suspension to its maximum, locks the driveline, displays the water depth on the center screen, and, last but not least, lightly drags the brakes to dry them once you emerge. Impressive.

I dialed in another Terrain Response mode—Rock Crawl—for a day in Redington Pass east of Tucson, along the same route I’d earlier taken a Jeep Gladiator Rubicon diesel. With a 119-inch wheelbase instead of the Gladiator’s 137, the Defender didn’t kiss a single rock, and otherwise went everywhere the Gladiator had gone with its dual lockers and disconnected front anti-roll bar. (I did wish the Defender had the Jeep’s 17-inch wheels rather than the supplied 19-inchers, which reduce sidewall height and don’t allow airing down as much.) Rock Crawl mode locks the center and rear diffs; however, the front is left to make do with brake-actuated traction control, so those tires scrabbled a bit on steep climbs before grabbing. Nevertheless it was clear that the new Defender decisively eclipses the old one in this sort of terrain. The original’s admirable coil-spring compliance simply wouldn’t be able to overcome the lack of any cross-axle locking function. I should note that fuel economy dropped precipitously near to single digits for this run—not unexpected but roughly half what a Gladiator’s turbodiesel managed in the same circumstances.

The Defender has other tricks: ClearSight Ground View, which magically makes the hood disappear in dicey terrain, additional camera modes that lend close-up views of the front wheels or a bird’s-eye perspective. All-Terrain Progress Control allows the driver to dial in a walking pace and concentrate on steering rather than throttle management. And all the while the suspension and silky transmission continued to coddle us. At the end of the day Roseann and I agreed that neither of us had ever experienced a vehicle so comfortable on pavement and at the same time so capable in the backcountry.

However, I’ll state that here the Defender’s 4WD proficiency lags slightly behind its American rivals, largely due to the lack of a front locker and its 19-inch wheels. The Wrangler Rubicon reigns supreme in rough country, with the Bronco perhaps a tick behind. I’d rate the Defender at 90 percent of either of them. One could enhance this by installing the 18-inch wheels that are optional, along with slightly taller tires—but I would be very cautious not to compromise the overall brilliance of the Defender’s capabilities on and off road.

Another factor to consider for some of us is the difficulty of fitting (or finding) aftermarket accessories. Land Rover offers a winch as a factory option, but fitting one later might be nearly impossible for the near future. The last I heard, none of the major players in the 4x4 accessory market (ARB, etc.) is producing a winch bumper or recovery-capable rear bumper.

Of course the 800-pound gorilla lurking in the cargo compartment of the new Defender is the question of reliability. The legendary original was not, shall we say, legendary for this, and the new one is orders of magnitude more complex (quite literally a Macbook Pro versus an Underwood). Time will tell if the new, dedicated plant in Slovakia can exceed the quality of the venerable works in Solihull. One early YouTube saga involving a complete engine failure made a splash for some time, and others have surfaced detailing lesser issues. Only time will give us statistically valuable data.

In a way the baggage of that legendary name is unfortunate. If JLR had named this vehicle anything but Defender, it would have been greeted rapturously by Land Rover fanatics. The rest of us can greet it for what it is: a supremely accomplished 4x4 that is also comfortable for 600-mile freeway days, and capable of carrying nearly a ton of passengers and camping gear, or pulling four tons of trailer. I wouldn’t recommend trying to disassemble it under a mango tree with a hammer and a few spanners, but by every other objective measure the new Defender is a vastly better vehicle than the old one. I, for one, would own one in a heartbeat.

Can we admit the spare tire on the bonnet was a dumb idea?

I would venture to say that no single automotive feature is as widely recognized across the globe as the spare tire on the bonnet of a Land Rover. 

The Rolls-Royce “Spirit of Ecstacy” winged lady is certainly in the running. Some might mention, say, the tail fins of a ’57 Chevy. But it’s certain more people have seen that spare tire in person, from the streets of London or New York to the dirt tracks of Kenya or Australia or Nepal.

But, honestly, it was a really dumb idea.

Let me hasten to say that it was much less of a dumb idea as originally configured, with the skinny 6.00 x 16 tires and 5-inch wide wheels standard on Series 1 vehicles. But the arrangement still made raising the bonnet a pain, reduced forward visibility, and presented a challenge in getting the spare off and, worse, getting a potentially muddy punctured tire and wheel back on without scratching or gouging the paint or the Birmabright itself.

Even the 6.00 tire on this Series I blocks forward vision.

With modern wheels and tires—even so modest a fitment as the 235/85 x 16 tires on our 110—near visibility is significantly hampered. Topping out on a steep climb with nothing but a BFG filling your field of vision is not fun. And lifting the bonnet is a genuine heave for anyone not stout of tricep.

Even the modest 235-section tire on our 110 is a problem.

I might also point out that, horizontal on the bonnet, the tire is much more exposed to UV degradation from sun exposure, and to heat from the engine. Finally, I’ll point out that in the event you are rear-ended in your Land Rover, the ramifications of that tire breaking free and coming back through the windshield are not pleasant.

And with wider modern tires it gets a bit ridiculous.

Advantages? Well, er . . . let’s see. It’s quicker to access and doesn’t get as dirty as a spare tucked under the rear chassis. It eliminates the “complexity” of a swingaway carrier, as on the Series Land Rovers’ primary competitor, the 40-Series Land Cruisers. And adding a swingaway carrier on a Series Land Rover is an easy way to obtain two spares for journeys fraught with tire hazards. But really the spare should have been mounted on a swingaway to begin with—perhaps with an optional second spare on the hood.

Anyway . . . it sure does look cool.

Vehicle-dependent Expedition Guide, 5th edition

The very first Vehicle-dependent Expedition Guide was published in 1998, in association with Land Rover, in a hardbound format with color photos. These first editions now sell for many times the original price.

Once Tom Sheppard took over publication on his own, with his one-man Desert Winds Publishing, he opted for a more affordable, soft-bound book with black-and-white photos. But the information contained within remained head and shoulders above any similar publication that followed it. This was due more than anything else to Tom’s background as a test pilot for the RAF, and his predilection for solo travel in the depths of the Sahara—each of them activities that punished carelessness and lack of preparation harshly.  Thus VDEG (“veedeg”), as aficionados refer to it, didn’t simply offer advice on driving techniques, what to pack, and the best camp cot. The sections within also covered vehicle and team selection, vehicle modifications both recommended and not, fuel types and grades, oil viscosities, water, shipping, cooking and food, loading and lashing, communications, navigation, and much more. 

The same test-pilot attention to detail drove Tom to regularly produce new editions and sub-editions to keep the book current on rapidly advancing technology, leading some of his fans to tease him about an upcoming “Edition 4.1-6a (3t).” They certainly weren’t done in an attempt to squeeze more profit from the book; Tom could have saved much work by skipping several iterations and few would have noticed. 

I remember well our first meeting in 2009, after corresponding for a couple of years when I was the executive editor at Overland Journal. While Tom had always been charming via email, Roseann and I nevertheless arrived at his house north of London expecting someone imbued with at least a touch of the Top Gun attitude. 

Nothing could have been further from reality. We were greeted by a slender man approaching his eighties but thirtyish spry, somehow six feet tall yet at the same time elfin. And he was if anything more charming in real life, and in the comfort of his home bore more resemblance to a slightly absent-minded Oxford professor than a death-defying test pilot; given to exclaiming, “Oh dear,” when he spilled the sugar or forgot to put out cakes with the tea. Roseann fell hard and fast, and he and I developed a lasting friendship in addition to an effortless working relationship.

In 2015 I was shocked and humbled when Tom Sheppard asked me to be the co-author of the 4th edition of the Vehicle-dependent Expedition Guide. There was good reason for him to ask someone on this side of the Pond: Overland travel had exploded in the U.S., along with hundreds of new products. As well, vehicles were changing and so were recovery equipment and techniques. Tom relied on patience and the simplest tools for recovery on his solo Sahara drives, eschewing complexities such as winches (which would benefit from scant anchor points deep in the dune fields). 

That 4th edition took the better part of six months for the pair of us to completely revise and update, and for me to add a bunch of information on equipment with which Tom had no familiarity and, in some cases, little desire to have any (50-liter fridges, Tom?). We argued about his atavistic fondness for tubed tires; I lobbied for tubeless tires, plug kits, and Tyrepliers. In the end we each had a say. He let me write entirely new sections on winching and Hi-Lift (and, later, ARB) jacks, which later he also incorporated into his Four-by-four Driving, a comprehensive guide used by military special forces on at least two continents. 

By the time we were finished, VDEG had grown by something like 50 pages and about a pound. And for the first two months during which Roseann and I were the North American distributors, I did little else but pack and ship VDEGs. Subsequent 4-point-something reprints incorporated the usual worthwhile Sheppard-esque detail updates, but remained similar.

Now comes the 5th edition of VDEG. This time, Tom took a deep breath and enlarged both the format and font size, making for easier reading—and, given several updated/expanded sections, also making for a book that now weighs a tick over four pounds. Perhaps even more significantly, for the first time the 5th edition is printed digitally, which has bumped the clarity and contrast in the images noticeably. Despite this, the price has risen just $5, the first price increase in six years.

Also—perhaps—significantly, this is a very limited print run. We received just 75 copies; Tom kept a similar number for Europe and elsewhere.

I always feel justified in boasting about VDEG; after all I was a fan long before I became a co-author. I remember driving 120 miles to the Land Rover dealer in Scottsdale to buy my first copy, and waiting in line while the woman ahead of me agonized over whether she wanted the leopard or elephant tire cover for her new Discovery. The book was worth the wait and the price. It still is.

Order from our shop, here.