Hi All. Just wanted to post a few of my thoughts from seeing and driving the car today, as well as perhaps adding a few additional bits of info. Hopefully some of the Melbourne guys can add some additional thoughts.
1/ The car is even better in the flesh than I could of imagined - I cannot wait to get mine. My brother came with me, and was lucky enough to get a drive too - now he wants one.
2/ It drives extremely well with heaps of power in the diesel, mated to a perfect gearbox with almost indiscernable gear changes.
3/ It will drive very nicely on the black top, with the subtle suspension absorbing a lot of the terrible Australian road conditions. At full speed, it just absorbed any of the divots and drains that we were able to drive over. They mentioned that they had a large aftermarket suspension supplier think that they could do a better job of the suspension tuning for the Australian market than Inoes had done. After a drive in the vehicle, the owner of said company apologised for his previous remarks.
4/ The stereo system has good sound for a 4x4 truck, about on par with standard vehicle systems - certainly not a fantastic sound system though.
5/ They still do not have a solution for Solar setups on the roof of the car, connecting into the battery system.
6/ The raised air intake can be fitted later on at any stage.
7/ In Australia about 70% of vehicles ordered are Diesels, and about 70% are Trialmasters.
8/ When connecting a large trailer, the vehicle has trailer sway control, however it does not change the gearbox shift patterns/engine revs based on the fact that is now towing - Thank goodness. Apparently it has a cracker of a transmission cooler too - good to know for towing in the Oz heat.
9/ Yes the winch does involve changing the front suspension setup. Just adding a Roo Bar does not change the suspension.
10/ Strangely the car felt a little smaller than I imagined - in physical size, as well as the way it handled. However there is plenty of legroom and passenger room. My son and I are both over 6ft, and sitting behind me he had plenty of legroom.
11/ The Recaro seats are the best cars seats I have ever sat in.
12/ The drivers side footrest is a double edged sword. I can imagine on very long drives, that you would find it hard to stretch your left leg, unless you stretched it above the brake pedal. However the wide footrest certainly didn't change any driving position or feel uncomfortable during the brief drive. In fact in off roading situations I think the large footrest comes in handy as it provides a firm footrest to push back against as you are attempting steep declines.
13/ There is minimal body roll in my opinion, and I would consider far less than any other vehicles of this size and weight.
14/ Like many have commented it feels like a Strong rigid vehicle - tank like but nimble at the same time.
15/ Like a tank, it feels like it could go anywhere, and immediately instills confidence in you as the driver that you can conquer the terrain. Nothing was too hard for it, in low gear or no low gear.
16 / The Safari roof sits forward of the head position of the driver, so if you are a balding bloke like me, then you are effectively sitting in the shade. The window is coated in a reflective coating. I don't usually like Sunroofs, but this one was not too bad.
17/ They indicated that they are still finalising some small unique items for Australian certification, but sounded like they are nearly there.
This is a good start, I may think of others to add.
However overall, it is an awesome package, and even though these cars were the ones brand new off the docks this week, they were still PT02's, with many things still to be rectified, I can only imagine how much better the full production cars will be.
entreq.de
