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| Landrover
Monster Truck |
Broadcast
date : 24th September 2006 |
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Nobody asked Hendrik if he had a
fear of heights when they asked him to come out and play, this
afternoon. No wonder he’s looking a little apprehensive.
Yes, a Monster it certainly is, and not just any Monster
Truck. It’s based, err, rather loosely, on a Land Rover
Defender 110, and it was built by Pretoria Landy fanatic Jaq
Steyn.
What really does it for us with Goliath is that, unlike other
monster trucks, it’s painted in your typical Land Rover
British Green. No flame jobs or chrome obscuring the Landi
message. Just some serious suspension mods and some SERIOUS
wheels!
Each Trelleborg wheel and tyre combination weighs nearly 500
kilograms! This poor old car lying in the veld reminds us of
an old bone that a big bad dog decides to play with every now
and again.
And each component lovingly powder-coated and electro- plated
where appropriate.
The four-wheel-steering is operated using hydraulics from a
tractor, but fed through a Land Rover Discovery hydraulic
valve to give Jaq the necessary control.
The massive air-shocks come from the trucking industry, more
often seen on soft-drink trucks to provide a smooth ride for
heavy, breakable cargo. And yes, it has long-travel six
dampers, or shock absorbers, on each side of the vehicle.
What amazed us about Goliath was how well-sorted it was, and
how effortlessly it handled, thanks at least in part to that
four-wheel-steering. As for the sound, well, nothing beats a
454 Chevy V8!
Jaq Steyn’s Independent 4x4 operation started out as a Land
Rover scrap yard a couple of years ago, but soon diversified
into re-building complete Land Rovers and importing spares and
servicing Land Rovers that are out of their warranty period.
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This Hilux, owned by Jakes van
Staden, is known as Big Blue and runs a Chev 350 V8 on a Land
Rover 110 Station Wagon chassis.
It’s four-wheel-steering uses a ram from a fork-lift truck,
powered by an electro-hydraulic pump from a Walkalong Fork
Lift.
Like Goliath, it also uses a Discovery valve-bank to allocate
the hydraulic pressure to activate the front or rear wheels to
be steered.
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Another vehicle that the Steyns
are involved in is this rather famous off-road racing Land
Rover.
Once owned by Cliffie Barker, it now belongs to Harold Coen,
who has fitted it with a 2,5-litre BMW motor and has been
campaigning it very successfully in Class D of the off-road
series.
It seems like nothing is run of the mill around Independent
4x4’s workshop. These Pretoria okes seem to go their own
way. Incidentally, Hendrik is also a Pretoria oke.
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Soooo, whadooyoodoo for fun when
you are the biggest Landy in the Land? It’s quite obvious.
You pick on cars that are smaller than you.
In case environmentalists may be getting a bit upset, Jaq says
that he’s only helping in the car recycling process that’s
such a global issue right now.
And those big wheels are known as flotation items, so they
cause minimal soil erosion.
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One may conclude that it would
be very easy to flip such a tall vehicle. But with each axle
weighing 450 kgs and the total wheel and tyre weight coming in
at around 2000 kg, the centre of gravity is actually down
where it should be, close to the ground.
The Defender 110 body is like a little pimple on top of all
that critical mass.
Haven’t you dreamt of doing something similar in the
morning traffic?
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