Nissan Patrol 4x4 (Africa)

Below is a link to an old (2009) Top Gear Aus program in which the performence between an old and new 4x4 were compared.



A very poor choice of vehicles was the Yota FJ40 SWB against a Patrol Y61 LWB. These are apples and pears.

If they wanted to compare new against old they should have used two SWBs or two LWBs, and ideally the same brand.
Secondly they did not attempt any real twisters which would have shown the poorer flex and lack of locking ability of the older models.

Be that as it may, the comparison was still very revealing in terms of SWB vs LWB vehicles.
The SWB (even though old) could master tighter corners and better cross over angles.
However the LWB Y61 had much better balance and was able to descend at 80degrs!! (Until now 45degrs had been nerve wracking enough for me). Albeit a short descend, there was still enough space for the SWB to topple over, but wisely did not attempt the obstacle.

In summary:
LWB: Better balance for steep incline and declines.
SWB: Better cross over angles and cornering

Alex, that wasn't 80degrees, it was 80% (40-42 degrees).

Anyway, as you said, a poor choice of competitors, but does sort-of illustrate how 4x4's are continuosly getting larger. The first landies had a wheelbase identical to the ww2 Jeep of 80" (and no LWB model was available for several years), now the shortest is 90". And so forth...

I agree not a fair comparrison but imho they make then bigger to let people carry more stuff

Not fair. But still interesting

I think the guy from Top Gear Australia that drove the Patrol is a chop 1st class. My daughter can drive it better than he did and he is a "professional" tv presenter with miles more experience.

Peter Connan wrote:Alex, that wasn't 80degrees, it was 80% (40-42 degrees)

I checked the end of the video again, the presenter definitely says 80 degrees rather than percent, and then uses the phrase, "basically vertical".
The driver may have gotten confused between the degrees and percent, but it looked like more than 42 degrees to me.
The Patrol, having such as long wheel base, knocks the bottom almost as the back wheels hit the top end of the obstacle.