t s e b e h t f o 4 x 4 el from the 4x4 world. representing a particular make and mod A quartet of great modified off-roaders is the Suzuki Jimny This month: the giant-killing legend that
TOY STORY
S
ome of Gary Whenmouth’s earliest and happiest childhood memories are of playing in the mud. And here he is, some years later, playing in the mud. ‘The toys now just need to be bigger,’ he says. A case in point is the modestly hairy Honda ATC70 three-wheeler on which he cut his off-road teeth. Compare and contrast with the Suzuki Jimny you see here. Even this has echoes of the past. For the simple reason that it’s an old toy which he discarded, having had his fun with it. Or at least he thought he’d had his fun with it, but then their paths crossed again years later and, realising that he could use a bit more, he bought it back.
52 | MARCH 2023
10pp 4x4 of the Best Mar 23.indd 52
Words: Gary Noskill Pics: Steve Taylor
Red flags? If we were talking about the relationship between man and woman, rather than between man and car, you might possibly be sucking air in between your teeth and thinking ‘don’t do it, mate’. But it’s an old Suzuki, so what’s the worst that could happen? ‘I wish I’d started with a standard Jimny in better condition from the start,’ says Gary, by way of an answer to that question. Nonetheless, despite the hard work it was a bundle of fun so that’s alright. As you can already see, it’s been a complicated relationship. And as is so often the case, there’s a back story. Once upon a time he drove another 4x4 from the same maker, this time a Grand Vitara, which he admits was ‘a pavement princess that never got dirty.’ And
where’s the fun in that? ‘But then I needed to get dirty and play in the mud!’ he continues, and that’s something we can all relate to. So he bought a 3.0-litre Mitsubishi Shogun and ended up fitting it with all the toys like a lift kit, big tyres and snorkel. But even if the relationship is just about fun, a little care and attention is still nice… and when he cooked the Shogun’s engine on a pay-and-play day, by the well practiced route of filling the radiator with mud, the fun stopped. He then went to eBay and bought a lightly modified Jimny that had been in a modest stack. The plan was to have fun in this while he rebuilt the Mitsubishi, but then he discovered that the fun really had stopped and what he in fact needed to do was buy a house.
4x4 13/02/2023 23:12
