[Nextmove]

I'll search for Mr "Go Jeep", Laird. You may be right that it was him. He was considered a god-like figure in the Jeep fraternity in particular, and in the 4WDer herd in general, even though Jeeps, apart from well prepped Wranglers, were considered a bit of a joke by many LandCruiser owners. In Oz, Landcruisers replaced Defenders almost overnight back at the time they first appeared, and were never threatened by any other make, including Nissan, thereafter.

But the snobbery about "lesser" makes like Jeeps (and Landys) was pretty funny, because most of the urban Land Cruiser set drove (and still do) the big poncy models designed for the people who couldn't afford Range Rovers, but liked the RR look, who liked their bums to be comfy, and who wouldn't know how to get over a sand dune or through a Northern Territory or Queensland rainforest bog if their bums were on fire.

The "real" serious 4WDers nearly all used, and still do, the heavy duty mining company model Land Cruisers which were bomb proof (they're known as "troopies - for troop carriers, even though the Oz army hung on to (mainly) Defenders for many years, and still have a lot of them, so it's not clear to me where that label comes from).

Maybe they still are bomb proof, though comfort has crept in over the years. I occasionally drove one of those "troopy" Cruisers about 10 years back which was a fast response fire tender in my local volunteer bushfire brigade, and it was rather pleasant both on and off road. A big jump forward from the early versions. We have a senior citizen lady friend back in country Oz who has one as her daily drive, and she loves it.

And it was a limo compared to my 2011 Defender, which was possibly the most uncomfortable thing I've ever driven. And it could've eaten the Deaf Ender for breakfast in the rough.

The Wranglers that landed in west Oz, and were brave enough to go bush without having my XJ man do a thorough check-over and upgrade, regularly fell apart due to lousy manufacturing standards (eg critical frame welds not actually welded, so things bent at the first proper excuse. Jeep Oz refused to acknowledge any such faults, though they were patently obvious).

He waged constant warfare with the Jeep dealers in Australia and US management on behalf of owners who'd been shortchanged on quality control and after sales service. The only way Jeep managed to keep their sales going fairly well in Oz despite a totally lousy reputation was by reducing the prices on new ones to extremely low levels.

So we had lots of urban cowboys driving Wranglers that never got dirty. And were never pushed hard. Fortunately.

The XJs, with a few mods and decent care, were great cars, though, and pretty good even in standard mode for not-too-serious offroading. And quite comfy too. They never pretended to be be hardcore. Apart from a early Thunderbird, or Studebaker Golden Hawk, which are a whole different ball game, they're the only Yank set of wheels I've ever really liked.