4x4 of the best up to the challenge

Nick Bolt got involved in the winch challenge scene way back before he was old enough to drive. His dad Chris, a long-time 4x4 enthusiast, brought the off-roading skills he’d learned as a Devon farmer to bear as a competitor with Challenge South West –and before long, Nick was learning the art of rigging a recovery.

But then Nick passed his driving test – and straight away, Chris proposed a role reversal, putting his son in the hot seat. ‘It’s amazing how much more you can see when you’re not in the driver’s seat,’ Chris told us. ‘We decided that it made sense for me, as the more experienced off-roader, to be in this position. Besides, it gives Nick a wonderful opportunity to hone his talents behind the wheel.’

And hone them he did, making immediate waves in national-level events aboard a tastily prepped 70-series Land Cruiser. Nick wasn’t just honing his talents behind the wheel at the time, either, as he was an apprentice at Devon 4x4 at the time, and the skills and knowledge he was picking up under the tutelage of Simon Buck allowed him to take the lead in what was a lengthy build process.

If you know about Devon 4x4, you can imagine what learning his trade there did for Nick’s sense of what can be achieved with a challenge truck. So you won’t be surprised to learn that his first thought was to take an angle grinder to the Land Cruiser and convert it to a pick-up.

‘We got fed up with crashing the rear hardtop into trees and breaking the windows,’ says Chris. ‘So Nick thought it would be a good idea

Slimline front bumper went on board to support the truck’s single Warn 8274, whose only mod is that it runs an uprated motor to speed it up. The change to Plasma didn’t come until after our photoshoot – Chris and Nick must have been one of the very last teams to take part in a challenge event on steel cable

Words: Gary Noskill Pics: Steve Taylor

Above left: Toyota’s 2.4-litre turbo diesel was strong as an ox but about as refined as one, too. What it wasn’t was free-revving, and with 35” Simexes to spin that’s something it needed to be. That’s why what you’re looking at here is the 3.0-litre petrol engine from a Toyota Supra, which went in place easily and makes a huge difference to the truck’s driveability

Above right: Standard class challenge regs meant no fancy diffs, so the Cruiser is seen here on completely standard axles. On some makes of vehicle, that would be a recipe for non-stop broken halfshafts, but even with a lively engine at one end and savagely patterned outsize tyres at the other they were comfortably capable of dealing with the shock loads to do away with it all together.’ When Chris was otherwise engaged one day, his son duly set to work on their pride and joy, creating one of the most distinctive Land Cruisers you’re likely to come across.

Nick left the vehicle’s wings and arches in place while removing the upper part of the rear body, welding in sections of 80mm steel box to strengthen the sides of the loading bay and skinning the floor in chequer plate. There are aluminium storage boxes in there too now, along with home-made waffle slots where the average pick-up would have a tailgate. Which helps.

‘Before we did the conversion,’ says Chris, ‘I had to open the rear door every time I wanted any extra equipment. Now I just grab it from the rear. It makes life a lot easier.’

The first that Chris knew of it was when Nick sent a picture of the job to his phone. He was highly appreciative of what he saw, though, which, was just as well after all that.

And there’s a lot more to appreciate, too. Like what you find under the bonnet.

Here, the Land Cruiser used to be powered by a 2.4-litre diesel. Not a thing many people remember with any great fondness. A 3.0-litre Supra engine, on the other hand, now that’s going to raise a smile. In America, it’s a common swap into the Toyota 4Runner, and it certainly fits easily in the Cruiser’s engine bay. Nick and Chris kept their manual gearbox by welding together the front half of a Supra bellhousing and the rear half of one from a Land Cruiser bellhousing, retaining the original clutch and flywheel into the bargain. In Chris’ own words: ‘The engine transplant was much easier than we thought it would be. The petrol engine is a massive improvement on the 2.4-litre diesel that was in place. It’s a lot more free-revving, so Nick can use the gears to get over obstacles.’

Helping him in this regard is a suspension set-up running a lift of around four inches. Rather than spending a load of money on an aftermarket set-up, Nick and Chris experimented with using front springs from an 80-Series Land Cruiser – which fit straight on and, being designed to hold up so much more weight, fetch it skywards a treat even under the weight of the winch. At the rear, meanwhile, coils from a +2” kit achieve more or less the same amount of lift thanks to the weight reduction achieved when the body went under the knife.

The springs sit on top of completely standard axles, which Chris described to us as ‘pretty bullet-proof’. No small matter when you’re dealing with the sort of shock loadings a 35” Simex can deliver. Standard Class regs meant no fancy diffs, so when we say standard we’re talking about a pair of axles that’s literally factory original.

The regs of the day also meant no rear winch, so Nick and Chris were literally running with one single Warn 8274. The winch did have an uprated motor, but that was all. For a while, Chris was even hauling a steel cable about the place – until it snapped, next time out after we’d done our photos, providing them with the perfect excuse to give Plasma a try. The number of people who’ve gone back to steel after making that jump can be counted on the fingers of one finger.

There might not be a rear winch but there’s a hefty 3x2” box section bumper there that could certainly take one. That goes with the slimline unit holding up the front winch, and along the sides there’s a pair of rock sliders protruding beyond the extent of the doors. The whole lot is wrapped in an exo cage made by Paul Leworthy at Zeal Steel, which allows Nick to lean it up against trees without trashing the cab. Another tidy mod is a Suzuki fuel tank, which the guys added to improve ground clearance.

Not many 70-Series Land Cruisers have made their way into the challenge scene, though you have to assume that that’s because so few ever came to Britain in the first place. Certainly, though, whatever the reason if you were to see Nick and Chris in action you’d wonder why more people didn’t give Toyota a try.

Left: The vehicle’s overall suspension lift is around 4”. It’s achieved using 80-Series Land Cruiser coils at the front and, here at the back, +2” springs and shocks – which make more or less the same difference

Below: Replacing the original fuel tank with a Suzuki unit probably doesn’t sound like an obvious mod to make. But by doing this, Nick and Chris improved the Land Cruiser’s ground clearance in one of its most vulnerable areas

The quality of the work on the truck is extremely high and certainly bears testimony to Nick’s skill as a mechanic. He’s made a brilliant job of finishing the cabin, even to the extent of redirecting the rear roof gutters around the truck cab and fitting it with a sliding window – using a side window from a Defender 90.

Given that all of the work was completed in one of the Bolts’ barns, rather than in a fully equipped workshop, you’d have to say that it’s an astonishing job. ‘I was pretty pleased with the results,’ Chris laughs. ‘I think Nick is a fairly safe pair of hands when it comes to making modifications.’ He’s definitely not given to hyperbole – even if, in its bright orange coat of paint, there might not be anything understated about his truck.

Whatever your taste in Land Rovers, there’s one annual publication you can’t afford to miss. The Land Rover Yearbook is an eclectic blend of classics, modified motors, new Landies, product reviews, travelogues and more.

This year’s Yearbook includes a range of 90s and 110s that have been brought back to life with a twist. And a 107” Station Wagon, too, restored and modified into a Series I like no other. If you prefer your classics to be more, well, classic, you’ll find an 88” Series IIA rebuilt with a devotion to originality that borders on the fanatical. And how about one of the very earliest Freelanders? Not everyone’s idea of a classic, but everything about Land Rover’s history since then says it’s one of the most significant vehicles the company has ever made.

The Discovery, for example, was a truck in the pre-Freelander era. Now it’s a premium SUV. We’ve tested the current model in entry-level D250 form in a bid to find out whether you really need to stretch all the way to a top-spec engine. And we’ve driven the basic Defender 90, too – steel wheels and all. Not just on any test drive, either, but a mighty green lane trip on some of the best trails in the country.

That’s one kind of travel story. Getting up close to Africa’s wildlife is definitely another, and so too is the Dakar Classic. Loads of historic Range Rovers and Series trucks were involved in this marathon desert rally – yet not one of them had a British driver. So be warned spend a day or two poring over the 2023 Land Rover Yearbook and you might come away on a mission to put that right!

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