Our Vehicle
Hugo in all his glory.
So what vehicle are we using on this adventure?
Well we started off thinking about a Toyota Hi Lux. My brother-in-law and sister had one back in Perth and I know that they are very capable cars. And they are not too badly priced in the UK. When we started asking around people said that it would do the job, but if we could afford it get a Toyota Land Cruiser instead. We also looked at the Landrover Defenders, but I do have a soft spot for Toyotas :) We also found that the resale value of the Toyotas was much higher in Australia… so again the Toyota won out.
When we seriously started looking for a vehicle and asking a few question on the various forums we found that although the Land Cruisers cost more to initially buy, they come standard with things we’d need to get upgraded on the Hi Luxes, and the parts are easier to get hold of. With a bit more advice again from forums we found a guy who specialised in preparing Landcruisers for overland travel. His name is Julian Voelcker and he is a wealth of information. We ended up being told to try and find a Toyota Landcruiser 80 aged between 1993 and 1998, diesel, full locking diffs, and preferably the 24 valve model. From 1993 they got bigger, better brakes, and the UK models came with full locking diffs whereas the Japanese imports only tended to have a centre locking diff.
In the end we managed to tick most of the boxes. We got a 1993 diesel model with full locking diffs, but the 12 valve model. We named him Hugo. Gem had actually already named the car before we got him… she decided on the name Hugo after the character Hugo Horton from the Vicar of Dibley, as we wanted something big, simple and reliable. I think we got that in Hugo. Everyone says the Landcruisers are rock solid and very reliable, and run for hundreds of thousands of miles. Ours had 160,000 miles on the clock, but Julian says it takes the first 100,000 to run in the engine :)
So thats our truck. Take a look at the “Vehicle Prep” section under “Preparation” to see what we did with Hugo after we bought him to get him ready for the big trip.
