Rubicon Ready

It’s easy to understand why Elaine was a bit nervous as she peered down into the gulley over the flat bonnet of the Hotchkiss. Not only was this the first time she’d ever driven off-road, it was also the first time she’d ever been at the controls of any off-roader, let alone a crusty old veteran like our Eugene.

“I can’t drive down into that,” she said.

“Of course you can,” said Tim, “just do it!”

Elaine crunched into second gear and lurched in the clutch. Eugene shot down the side of the hole and growled straight up the other side. Elaine’s whoop of excitement as the Hotchkiss cleared the brow mingling with the sounds of rumbling exhausts, roaring engines and whirling tyres coming from the dozens of other Jeeps and Jeep enthusiasts bashing their way about Broxhead Common, near Borden, Hampshire. The common is a sandy site with lots of tricky tracks, deep gulleys and muddy pools, and it proved an excellent place for a bunch of newcomers to discover the delights of old Jeep-style off-roading.

We’d hitched Eugene behind our Cherokee Ripoff; Pete showed us all up by towing his CJ3A to the site behind a brand new long wheelbase Wrangler. Our old flat-fenders drew admiring glances from the other owners, who’d arrived in an excellent range of standard and highly modified Wranglers, Cherokees and Grand Cherokees; great off-roaders, all of them, but there’s a timeless quality about the original Jeep style that still turns heads, and it’s also true that not many of the oldsters still engage in anything resembling serious off-roading.

After that first nervous passage Elaine quickly settled into Jeep mode, snicking through the gear changes with impressive delicacy and charging fearlessly through ruts and boggy stretches as Tim held on for dear life…

Meanwhile Pete’s son Matthew had decided to give himself some off-roading lessons in dad’s CJ3A. exuding so much confidence as he charged through gulleys and over humps that passenger Cass didn’t even feel the need to hang on; the boy’s a natural.

Ripoff the Cherokee is nearly 15 years old, but you wouldn’t know it because there are only a few flecks of rust here and there and a few shrubbery scratches marking an otherwise still gleaming body, and it\s still quite sound underneath – so much so that we don’t think it’s ever been off-road before. Hence it was also a first off-road outing for Ripoff as we followed Tim and Elaine around Broxhead in case they got stuck. They didn’t.

Another gulley, narrow with a little twist along its length and quite a steep drop away at one end, proved irresistible to Tim who drove it nervously, consternation showing on his face as he discovered that it wasn’t easy to keep the Hotchkiss straddled, with the result that on a couple of occasions it heeled over alarmingly. Elaine found it even more nerve-racking when she drove the old warhorse back the other way, nearly taking out a tree in her efforts to avoid the sharp drop at the exit. It didn’t help that the Hotchkiss decided at that point to jam its throttle open, so while Elaine was fighting to keep the car under control we just thought she was being a hooligan.

An ex-Dutch army M38A1, with none other than four-wheel drive modification expert Chris Bashall at the wheel, turned up during the afternoon and showed us all up by trundling with relaxed ease up a steep, slippery slope leading out of a mud-filled gulley. It helped that his car was wearing wide, grippy 31x10.50 BFG Mud Terrains and (don’t tell anyone) its power comes from a tweaked Rover V8…

This slope had defeated many a well-modified modern Jeep; we’d heard the roar of engines and the whine of spinning tyres echoing through the trees. Mark Gasser was there with his bright red supercharged Comanche pickup, which had simply flown up the slope and then busied itself towing a string of other less capable Jeeps up the muddy gradient.

Pete, ever optimistic, couldn’t resist having a go at the same obstacle in the CJ3A. A brave attempt – but on its narrow 6.50x16 bar-grip tyres it just didn’t have the traction or ground clearance to cope with the gloopy mud at the foot of the slope. It was one of the very few occasions that Pete had ever needed to be towed out of a hole, but at least he was hauled out by another old Jeep.

The event was particularly enjoyable because it was held on a surprisingly sunny day, and proved trouble-free for our little party. JeepClub will be back at Broxhead later in the year, but it does have other events arranged for the coming months – check their website (www.jeepclub.co.uk) for details.