12 cars to take off-road instead of the best 4x4s

Like fake tanning and having ‘Live Laugh Love’ printed on a piece of your home decor, going off-road is enduringly and bewilderingly popular. Nearly every day we’re asked, “O Top Gear, knower of all that is mildly interesting and purveyor of the very finest in B-grade similes, what particular vehicle is best for submerging in muddy water somewhere very cold and very far from a pub?”

Usually, our answer extends as far as “someone else’s is a good bet; getting them to drive it there is the best bet”, but one of the muckety mucks at Top Gear clearly watched something with a lot of drone shots and soaring music on Netflix and has offered us a very enticing, continuing-employment-type argument for why we should probably expand on this sentiment.

So, without too much further ado, without any further insults to the off-roading community and without mentioning the 1,500 or so better uses for a car (ah, dang it), let’s figure out the best ways to head off-road. And because the best way to spell ‘obvious off-roader’ is L-A-N-D-C-R-U-I-S-E-R, let’s inject a little bit of lateral thinking into the mix.

Hm. Here’s a thing. We’re talking about alternatives to the best 4x4s on the planet, and have included the Fiat Panda 4x4, which is arguably one of the best 4x4s on the planet.

But no one’s thinking of the Panda 4x4 when they decide to go and scale something very large and very much off-road. Well, unless your name is Tom Ford, and you come up with ideas like this.

If you must get somewhere, regardless of natural boundaries, regardless of climatic inclemency, regardless of any sensible arguments to the contrary, you take an Avtoros Shaman. It’s the only vehicle we’ve ever stood next to and been genuinely afraid.

It could be its absolutely gargantuan proportions, it could be the not-so-faintly militaristic construction of the thing, or it could be that the badge is rendered in Cyrillic and we spent too long watching films like Red Dawn, Rocky IV and The Living Daylights to ever fully trust anything Russian. In any case, it’ll frighten both us and the elements into leaving well enough alone, as you saunter off across the Siberian steppe like it’s a trip to the shops.

If you’ll permit us, we’re going to quote the genius that is Max Brooks directly:

“The motorcycle – specifically the dirt bike – can reach places inaccessible to four-wheeled vehicles. Their speed and manoeuvrability allows them to be ridden right through a crowd of zombies. Their light weight allows them to be pushed for miles… When compared to other motorists attempting to escape a zombie outbreak, dirt bike riders have a 23 to 1 survival rate.”

Also, if you haven’t already, pick up a copy of The Zombie Survival Guide, the only book that’s ever truly frightened us. But while zombie evasion is an important part of the  motorcycle’s long list of abilities, their off-road use extends beyond your average end-of-days scenario.

Using nothing more than a single cylinder and chain-operated one-wheel-drive, bikes can clamber over territory usually reserved for Gelandewagens and Moab-readied off-road leviathans.

Of course, there’s something to be said for sending drive to as many wheels as possible. And stress less – well, not about humanity’s completely nonsensical slide into oblivion while refusing to grasp even a single offered hand on our way down, of course. But definitely stress less about needing an all-wheel-drive machine and also requiring a motorcycle.

Behold, the Rokon: a two-wheel-drive motorcycle that’s been around nearly as long as the Land Rover (what’s a decade between friends?) and can go every bit as far into the wild blue yonder as its four-wheeled cousin.

Now, with all of seven horsepower at your disposal, your journey into said yonder will not be at the kind of pace needed to win Baja, for instance. For a bit more speed – but maintaining two driven wheels – why not consider the Ural Gear-Up? It’s not all-wheel-drive, but it is two-wheel-drive. Yep, in the case of the Gear-Up, the sidecar’s wheel is driven, just like the rear wheel of the motorbike.

In reality, you don’t need anything like this to go so far off-road that you forget what they look like. Any number of trail bikes, both petrol-powered and electric – and resolutely one-wheel-drive – will transport you to Deliverance country faster than you can squeal.

Have you ever described something really cool as mega? If you have, you’re likely from a small and rather damp island in the Northern Atlantic. We’ve been to a few places in our time, and not once has anyone but a Brit enthusiastically called something they enjoyed mega. Not even the Finnish – and you know how overenthusiastic those guys can get. Right, Kimi?

So you’d assume that a car brand called Mega would be about as British as a Sunday roast on a canal boat. But they’re not. Yep, just like Peter Dutton’s choice of au pair, Mega is a distinctly French affair – in fact, it’s an offshoot of French micro-car maker Aixam. But from a fairly shaky-sounding start, things get much weirder and much more meg... uh, good.

Do you want to know how long we’ve waited for the chance to talk about this magnificent beast? Years, people. Years. And now, finally, the perfect time has arrived for the apotheosis of 1990s hubris and ideas so left-field that they’re technically in the grandstand.

Because we’re talking about a 400bhp Mercedes 6.0-litre V12, mid-mounted in a body that combines Nissan Stelvio and Venturi 400GT, then continually adds more 1990s until it can play the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers theme song. And then things get properly mad.

The car you’re looking at is actually about five metres long and two metres high. It holds, as well as 12 cylinders, four seats, four-wheel-drive, a four-speed automatic gearbox and adjustable suspension that ranges from about 20cm above the ground to more than 30. That’s the kind of ground clearance that embarrasses a new Land Rover Defender. Oh, and the Track weighs about 2.3 tonnes, but can still haul itself from zero to 60 in six seconds, regardless of the surface it's on.

OK, sure, it might be a little on the difficult side to rustle up a Mega Track, given that production extended to a heady five to ten cars, but there can be no great reward without great struggle, no?

Remember this bad boy from about a decade ago? We sent the smallest man in the Top Gear team to South Africa to get his fill of overcompensation, who returned saying that it “really was like off-roading a large building”.

Whether that’s your cup of tea or not is, frankly, immaterial. The Marauder cares not if you want one, whether you want to drive one or if you have any qualms about piloting a 10-tonne paramilitary machine that shrugs off bullets like an Eighties action-movie star. That’s because while it’s called the Marauder, it should really be called the Terminator. As Kyle Reese said back in 1984, “it can't be bargained with, it can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity or remorse or fear, and it absolutely will not stop. Ever".

And this feels like one of those qualities that’d be quite useful off-road. Or did we miss something?

Let’s say you want to go off-road. It’s as good a reason as any to be reading this article. Other good reasons include skiving off from work and terminal boredom. But we’re wandering away from the point a bit.

Let’s say that you do want to go off-road, but you want to stay there for a little while. You could achieve this with the addition of tents, portable gazebo or some other kind bivouac. You could also take your accommodation with you in a way that doesn’t require you to build your own shelter every time you feel like staying somewhere. Because, let’s be honest, that’s a little bit caveman for 2020, isn’t it?

Yes, we’re talking about the campervan again, which is usually where we mentally check out and start daydreaming – like if you can be underwhelmed and overwhelmed, can you ever just be whelmed? – but this one actually holds our interest.

Why? Well, the brutalist, utilitarian shape certainly piques our weirder design kinks, and the addition of full-time four-wheel-drive and an unkillable air-cooled engine has us daydreaming about bug-out bags and where exactly in the unpopulated expanse of Yukon we’d start playing out our survivalist fantasies. Er, just us?

They might be as old as the hills – and quite possibly the hills’ grandparents - but you would not believe how far the exceptionally humble Bug will make it off road. On a side note, we’ve been told by geologists that hills definitely do not have grandparents, as geological formations possess neither the biological features or inclination to procreate. Not even volcanos, which really surprised us.

Moving on. The Baja Bug started, as you are already vastly aware, as the plebian Volkswagen Beetle, before undergoing some budget-friendly modifications to try to match the off-road prowess of the Beetle-based Meyers Manx beach buggy. With mods usually done by the racers themselves, the modding scene grew to the point where aftermarket fibreglass panels and pre-made tubular steel frames, and the Bug’s torsion-bar suspension meant it was easy to lift the ride height and fit gigantic knobbly tyres.

And now it’s a classic staple, not just in historic rallies, but current (and entirely insane) excursions into the hardest territory known to man. Just don’t think too hard about who came up with the original car, yeah?

Image: Devkotlan Photography

But if we’re going to talk about Baja, we’re going to have to talk about the Baja Boot. The original was created by off-road savant Vic Hickey in the space of 26 days to break from the then-ubiquity of VW Beetle-based off-road racers, then raced it the length of Mexico. Needless to say, the rear-mid-mounted V8 and four-wheel-drive was pretty much Concorde to the Baja Bug’s Cessna, and it grabbed the attention of the racing world and celebrities alike.

But let’s not get too mired in the past, shall we? Especially not when we have Jim Glickenhaus, purveyor of exceptionally fast cars and possessor of a mindset that we can very much get behind.

According to Jim (good grief, we just reminded ourselves of that awful sitcom), the new 650bhp SCG Boot can do what an actual super-SUV should be able to – “drive to the Baja 1000, compete, then drive home again.” oh, and just for the record, that’s exactly what Jim did.

And if we’re going to talk about world-famous, car-breaking rallies, we can’t not mention the Dakar, can we? This is the race that breaks wills just as quickly as cars. The Dakar route really is as rugged and magical as it seems.

So just how rugged and magical does a machine have to be to conquer Dakar? Oh, about Porsche 959 Dakar rugged and magical. Originally destined for Group B (and good grief, did the motorsports world miss out there), the 959 cut its teeth out in the wilds of northern Africa, winning the 1986 Paris-Dakar.

Looking at a road-going 959 today, it might seem at best ridiculous and at worst sacrilegious to send something that gorgeous and that technologically endowed off onto the rough stuff. But if you ever get the chance, just remember – it’s born to do it.

As we’ve proved time and time (and time) again, the Ariel Nomad is, from the perspective of being a gaping-mouthed buffoon off-road, the absolute best tool for the job. It is engineered to the nth degree to take the kind of punishment usually reserved for rally cars – fitting, really, given the Nomad uses the same suspension as WRC cars – and custom-designed to be as no-holds-barred fun as humanly possible. As Joey from Friends once said, it’s the most fun you can have in a car.

We love this thing more than some of our siblings, and would recommend it for pretty much every purpose, up to and including a wedding car. Seriously, how much do you want us as a best man right now?

Does Lamborghini owe Aixam a debt of gratitude? What about Ariel? Or maybe Porsche? Lancia? Honestly, let’s just be grateful that the Lambo Sterrato exists.

Regardless of who invented the off-road supercar, it’s hard to say Lambo doesn’t nail the recipe – mid-mounted V10 with more than 600bhp, all-wheel-drive, a wide, off-road-friendly track and similarly off-road-friendly suspension and tyres. Really, the only way for us to be any more grateful is if Lambo went ahead and put it into production.

What do you see when you look at a Citroen DS? A cover shoot for Vogue, perhaps, a prop in some avant-garde / Oscar-bait film, or just another perilously close encounter with some car bore who wants to wax on about its hydropneumatic suspension?

Unfortunately for you, kiddo, it’s the latter.

Yep, it’s yet another thing that Citroen’s ingenious suspension system is good for – we’ve had comfort usually reserved for posh hotel mattresses, changing a wheel without a jack and that time it literally saved a French president’s life, but what about off-roading? Oh yes.

Not that off-roading is too far outside the DS’s wheelhouse – after all, Citroen sent the DS off rallying back in the day, and it returned with victories. Oh, and how about the time the DS, by that time a 20-year-old car, finished first in a 12,000-mile rally from Great Britain to Germany, with a somewhat significant detour through Africa?

Look, any one of these frankly ingenious options is at least 50 per cent Top-Gear-Office-approved for off-road enjoyment (we’re a tough crowd), but for unrivalled off-road insouciance? There can be only one.

Still haven’t found what you’re looking for? Well, ask Bono; he seems to have the same problem. Or our very own Tom Ford, who has his own ideas for your next off-roader...

Horses are wonderfully adaptable creatures. Did you know that you can get top-tier leather, glue and delicious supermarket mince from the same animal? Truly a wondrous thing.

Also, if you’re absolutely insane, you can actually climb aboard one of these skittish burgers-in-waiting and try to encourage it to take you in the rough direction you’re intending to go. This could even be off-road.

Horses, as equine enthusiasts can attest, are given to going very far off-road without a staggering amount of effort. Wild horses roam across Australia, America and even a song by the Rolling Stones, so you know that neither terrain nor mournful songs from Sticky Fingers will impede a horse’s ability to drag you away. Kicking and screaming, in our case.

Image: Mikel Ortega

It turns out that you can get quite far off-road using nothing more than the fragile flesh jacket that surrounds your brain. If you have been bestowed with a decent level of physical ability and adventurousness, you’ll be able to go a serious distance off-road without investing in much more than a decent set of boots and a backpack.

It must be said that perambulating is not the fastest or easiest way to head off-road, but, in terms of absolute go-anywhere ability, nothing a human being can build – short of a helicopter or some form of mil-spec amphibious vehicle – will be able to go to the places a human being can.

Case in point: the summit of Everest is generally only available by walking. No, really – the first time a helicopter made it to the summit of Everest was more than five decades after Hillary and Norgay made it on foot. By that point, investment bankers with a few months’ training were making successful summit attempts. Man is better than machine in a few things yet, then. Take that, Skynet, you dog-hating jerk.