I just spent 4 days in the bush, driving 6 WRC rally routes in my Grenadier. Done it every year for the past three: the prior two years in my 200 series and this year in my Grenadier.
It involves single lane Kenyan tarmac (stressful) to get to the stages, corrugation (lava rock) in-between stages and then a mix of mud, rock, savannah and “fesh fesh” (deep dust) within the stages. It’s extremely rough.
I can honestly say I made the right choice with this vehicle. It felt invincible. Absolutely unbelievable in the bush- steady, confident- zero issues whatsoever. I was pleasantly surprised on tarmac too. Once you get used to the steering and how it handles, you’re far more confident in its ability.
I must admit, at first I was quite afraid of high speed tarmac driving on narrow winding roads… but after this trip I’ve learnt how to deal with the beast and trust it! You learn that when you point and shoot, it just goes. You learn not to overcorrect, which is one of the reasons I was timid. There’s a natural tendency to overcorrect when the steering is more loose than you’re used to. But the grenadier felt nimble and planted when I pushed it and trusted it more.
The acceleration is fantastic, especially for single lane tarmac highways with more trucks than you can count. And then there’s the brakes- before I left the city, I didn’t really know just how powerful the braking system is because city driving is mostly tempered and progressive braking. But on this trip, emergency braking was critical off-road and on. And the 3.5 ton machine literally comes to a halt when you need it to, and is ready to take off again, faster than you can push your foot down!
This post may sound crazy, but you need to do this trip to understand what I’m talking about. This isn’t overloading, nor is it rock crawling or off-roading on trails. This is driving out in the wild where you don’t have a map, or any idea what the next turn brings. Animals, trenches, massive rocks… trucks… and you have very little time to get from point to point, mostly between 1 and 4am in pitch darkness…
I’ve attached a snippet of some of the roads/paths driven…
If you’ve got a Grenadier on order, well done! If you’re on the fence, get off and get one!
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