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Jaggy Cars - December 2009
Seasonal Road Test - Land Rover Defender Bigfoot
Santa’s BIG Helper
The Christmas rush is over, the January sales are already well underway, Internet sales have never been busier and the whole thing nearly came crashing down around our ears – because it snowed. And if you think the parcels couriers and the hauliers have had a hard time delivering presents, food, drink and Alka-Seltzer, one man took the seasonal rush in his stride.
Forget DHL and UPS. Forget Stobart and Malcolm, this guy had them all licked. When it comes to the biggest logistical challenge on the planet and tight deadlines, no-one does it better than Santa Claus.
By the time you read this, Santa will be back at the North Pole with his feet up, but just suppose he had struck a problem? Hertz and Avis don’t do sleigh rentals. And it’s not as if he can call out the AA (Animal Assistance) or the RAC (Reindeer Aid Club) because these guys are not quite up to roof-top rescues. And can you just imagine what Elf & Safety would say about a Patrolman clambering up the side of a chimney stack in the snow just to rescue a bloke in a red suit?
But thanks to Land Rover, Santa has a back up plan, and long before the snow came, Jaggy got the chance to drive Santa’s personal breakdown truck – the Land Rover Defender Bigfoot!
The thing is. Santa has never let us down. He has never needed to call on his back-up rescue service, but that hasn’t stopped the boys at Land Rover building the ultimate go-anywhere and rescue-anything four wheel drive truck – the Land Rover Defender Bigfoot.
Throughout the rest of the year, the engineering team at Land Rover use this unique machine at events all over the jungles, deserts and snowfields of the world supporting the ongoing test and development programme for ‘standard’ machines. So if they ever do get the call to shoe a hoof or weld a sleigh runner, then they are ready, willing and able to reach the parts that other 4WD vehicles can’t.
David Sneath heads the product development team at Land Rover and although he is the man in charge, this vehicle is the result of a team effort. It’s as much a team mascot as it is a working tool and after spending a day with it I can understand their attachment to this Meccano set on wheels.
It’s hard to miss. It towers over any other Land Rover, and that is due to the two inch chassis lift at front and rear and the fitting of 38 inch wheels. That means the driver sits some 14 inches higher than in a standard Defender.
The chassis lift itself is straightforward using spacers on the suspension pick-up points, although new shock absorbers had to be made for it while the wheels and tyres were imported from the States where high riding trucks are the norm. But these are not just for show. The rims have bead lockers allowing pressures to be dropped to as low as 2 psi for driving on soft boggy ground or snow without spinning the tyres on the rim. You could even drive over ‘green terrorists’ lying down in the road without hurting them.
And with plastic wing extenders front and rear to cover the huge tyres, these are the only obvious signs of the ongoing development work underneath the skin. Not to mention the skeleton outside the skin. Given the compact interior dimensions of a Defender, it’s understandable why they fitted the roll-cage around the outside!
More is apparent inside the cab. An array of additional switches and controls are needed to operate the crawler box transmission with front and rear air-locking differentials, winches front and rear, plus extra spot lights and satellite phone for use in remote and wild locations.
Otherwise the vehicle is remarkably standard, and there is a reason for that. David and his team have been allowed to do anything they want to the vehicle, as long as it can be re-converted back to standard spec and sold on at the end of its working life. In other words, anyone can build one of these.
There are a couple of drawbacks though. It’s wider than a Transit full of elephants. Secondly, it is not the most precise thing to drive on the public road. Even with power steering, controlling those big fat tyres is a bit like wrestling with a wet crocodile until you get used to it, but it’s never relaxing.
So why drive on the road? Because you can, but you can also drive anywhere else you like – through hedges, across fields, over bogs, and don’t let rivers stop you either, this thing thinks it’s a hippopotamus. According to David Sneath, the electrics have been modified to cope with wading depths up to 1500 cm, although it has traversed deeper rivers than that!
In these sort of conditions, the Bigfoot is in its element. It is virtually unstoppable. As long as you are in the right gear it will climb over anything, even a banker’s bonus. And there is something weirdly unnatural about climbing a rocky slope, while reclining almost on your back, watching the sky inch towards you as trees at odd angles slip slowly backwards on either side. It’s a bit like rocket travel, only a helluva lot slower.
It’s even worse going down the other side, hanging from the seat belts like a side of beef on a hook in a butcher’s shop. Thank goodness the diesel engine has the standard anti-stall system.
The trouble is, after a bout of terrain conquering travel with confidence levels high, the novice driver has to be wary of becoming over-confident. There is no such thing as a traffic queue in this thing – you’d just drive over the top of them. That gave me an idea about the neighbour’s caravan which blocks the sun in my garden! Ooops, sorry missus.
Nor does it arouse jealousy or anger amongst other road users. If their mouths are not agape in astonishment they are grinning from ear to ear in appreciation and amusement. Even ‘the greens’ left us alone thinking it looked more like a bog crawler than a Chelsea tractor.
Price? Difficult one this, because it’s priceless, but David reckons the team spent upwards of £40,000 on the bits to make this unique vehicle. But due to the way it was done, they could all be taken off again and sold on, and the standard vehicle put back on the company’s books.
So why did the engineers at Land Rover build it? Because they can – and because they still believe in Santa Claus.
Me too. Guess what’s on the top of my Christmas list to Santa next year?
Land Rover Defender Bigfoot
Engine: 2.4 litre, four cylinder turbodiesel
Power: 120 bhp, 360 Nm of Torque
Spec:
38" wheels & tyres with bead locking rims
Wheel arches modified to accommodate large wheels
2 inch suspension lift front and rear with modified shocks
Front and rear locking diffs
Crawler box transmission
Electrical system modified to allow 1500 cm wade
Full external roll cage
Front and rear winches
Rock slider sills
GPS tracking and satellite phone
On board compressor
Full roof rack and Xenon spotlights
Operated in Oman at 50 deg c as a rescue vehicle in the Wahhabi desert
Operated in Iceland at - 25 deg c crossing glaciers
Fuel burning heater for glacier crossings in Iceland
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