100 Series Toyota Land Cruiser - Tunisie Challenge Car
Discussion
You may have read my post previously about the Overland Yeti / subsequent Yeti TSI conversion which appears to have inspired a couple of PHers so far to head to Morocco, which is great! it has been awesome reading of poppopbangbang's Cayenne adventure and CA with his L405.
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...
Well anyone that read the original thread will know that things didn't go completely to plan and ultimately we were let down by road car build quality which just isn't that suitable to the trials and tribulations of overland action (at least not at the hands of amateurs, anyway).
Shortly after getting back myself and Will decided we had had such a great time that we definitely needed to go again. 2024 wasn't going to work as I was getting married so we settled on 2025 and then set about finding a car. Being a multiple L322 owner, I gave about 1 minutes thought to taking one of those before Will and I sat down over a beer and surmised that if the organisers of the rally use 100 series cruisers, then maybe we should get one too.
Quick search on ebay in May 2024 showed quite a few available - from the ropey to the sublime and from the just about affordable to the downright ridiculous £25-30k region for clean examples.
Naturally being bargain hunters we found an auction ending with a pretty bad AI description, limited info about the car and duly placed a bid. £4,100 and a round trip to bristol and this was sitting on the driveway:
So - it's a 2000 registered Land Cruiser Amazon (100 series) with the 2UZ 4.7 V8 petrol. A diesel would have probably been a more sensible option but you know - man making V8 noises + late night bidding = what you see here.
222k miles and a fair amount of surface rust, only one key and also a bodged ignition barrel with a comedy twin flick switch and starter button setup. 100% getting that looked at...
Quite a bad exhaust blow, no service history and that unmistakable smell of a 90s cars that's been sitting around, been smoked in, had an old boy at the wheel for many of its miles - nostalgic.
It was put into light work straight away, hauling the Yeti off for ECU work and taking my 599 which I had just sold off to be exported (seen here with its new owners).
This was May 2024 and to be honest that is where the story ends for 2024 as I got bogged down with a crazy workload, summer wedding, house purchase and move and family bits and bobs to deal with, the car was put into long storage pending a plan being made to get it up to Tunisie Challenge spec.
Now realistically it would probably have been fine as is to head straight there and crack on, but we definitely want to put our stamp on it.
I sold and exported another of my cars in November and had a bit of extra budget to spare on some parts to schedule fitting in between the house move, Christmas and work commitments
First up - extended range fuel tank. With some of the stages on Tunisie 2025 reportedly exceeding 500KM, and estimating 10-15mpg realistically... on a 90 litre fuel tank was going to be pushing it so this was procured. I won't go into it but AVOID this company if possible and use someone else, not a good experience all round.
The tank will be fitted by Overland Cruisers when it goes down there in May for a good going over.
This will give us a total capacity of between 160-170 litres of fuel, so on the longer stages we will be okay.
Next up was to delete the AHC and replace with conventional suspension. Not wanting to break the bank and go with the highly regarded KING shocks, we decided to go with a mid range setup using Old Man Emu /ARB torsion bars, uprated rear springs and shocks and uprated front control arms.
The AHC was working perfectly - rising and dropping as it should - can you imagine a 220k mile P38 range rover from 2000 still on air? Despite this though, neither of us wanted to deal with a leaking hydraulic suspension system i the middle of the desert. The plan this year is reliability!
In addition to this we also ordered a new radiator and a new condenser (not pictured) so as to renew the cooling system.
Looking at it I found it strange that there is no independent condenser fan and after some research I decided to buy a condensor fan and mishimoto sensor kit - we will get round to mounting and fitting that like they have on the UAE / Australian cars in due course.
So with that, in mid feb we borrowed a friends unit and set to work for a long, greasy, painful day getting the rads and suspension replaced.
The suspension, especially the rear shocks - were an absolute b
d - but we got there in the end. The radiators were actually quite straight forward as there is a lot of room to work in the engine bay. Not so easy to work on now as it's lifted quite a bit!
Next up was to fit some spacers to the wheels so that the RADAR/RENEGADE A/T tyres would fit.
Tyres fitted and tracking done...!! and that is where we stand today, give or take.
Next steps:
We have done a third row seat delete - I wanted to put in some off the shelf storage box/drawers but at the prices most charge (£1k+) I couldn't justify it. I found strangely enough one of my suppliers in China actually makes them at a much reduced cost but with an MOQ of a pallet (8 units). So 8 units are on their way and the other 7 we don't use will be re-sold on ebay to hopefully cover our costs.
They should look something like this:
Will also got to work cleaning the interior:
Mmmmm nice
Much better.
It is off to Overland cruisers in May to have the tank fitted, a good look over and anything resolved that needs doing as well as a service. It weighs in around £6.5k currently, if we can get this fully prepped up and sorted for around the £10k mark we will be really chuffed, it's going to look and sound great...
Oh yes did I mention Toby is going to fabricate an exhaust!! The Laser Light LEDs will also re-appear in due course!
Updates will be sporadic but will keep everyone posted on the journey!
Thanks for reading.
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...
Well anyone that read the original thread will know that things didn't go completely to plan and ultimately we were let down by road car build quality which just isn't that suitable to the trials and tribulations of overland action (at least not at the hands of amateurs, anyway).
Shortly after getting back myself and Will decided we had had such a great time that we definitely needed to go again. 2024 wasn't going to work as I was getting married so we settled on 2025 and then set about finding a car. Being a multiple L322 owner, I gave about 1 minutes thought to taking one of those before Will and I sat down over a beer and surmised that if the organisers of the rally use 100 series cruisers, then maybe we should get one too.
Quick search on ebay in May 2024 showed quite a few available - from the ropey to the sublime and from the just about affordable to the downright ridiculous £25-30k region for clean examples.
Naturally being bargain hunters we found an auction ending with a pretty bad AI description, limited info about the car and duly placed a bid. £4,100 and a round trip to bristol and this was sitting on the driveway:
So - it's a 2000 registered Land Cruiser Amazon (100 series) with the 2UZ 4.7 V8 petrol. A diesel would have probably been a more sensible option but you know - man making V8 noises + late night bidding = what you see here.
222k miles and a fair amount of surface rust, only one key and also a bodged ignition barrel with a comedy twin flick switch and starter button setup. 100% getting that looked at...
Quite a bad exhaust blow, no service history and that unmistakable smell of a 90s cars that's been sitting around, been smoked in, had an old boy at the wheel for many of its miles - nostalgic.
It was put into light work straight away, hauling the Yeti off for ECU work and taking my 599 which I had just sold off to be exported (seen here with its new owners).
This was May 2024 and to be honest that is where the story ends for 2024 as I got bogged down with a crazy workload, summer wedding, house purchase and move and family bits and bobs to deal with, the car was put into long storage pending a plan being made to get it up to Tunisie Challenge spec.
Now realistically it would probably have been fine as is to head straight there and crack on, but we definitely want to put our stamp on it.
I sold and exported another of my cars in November and had a bit of extra budget to spare on some parts to schedule fitting in between the house move, Christmas and work commitments
First up - extended range fuel tank. With some of the stages on Tunisie 2025 reportedly exceeding 500KM, and estimating 10-15mpg realistically... on a 90 litre fuel tank was going to be pushing it so this was procured. I won't go into it but AVOID this company if possible and use someone else, not a good experience all round.
The tank will be fitted by Overland Cruisers when it goes down there in May for a good going over.
This will give us a total capacity of between 160-170 litres of fuel, so on the longer stages we will be okay.
Next up was to delete the AHC and replace with conventional suspension. Not wanting to break the bank and go with the highly regarded KING shocks, we decided to go with a mid range setup using Old Man Emu /ARB torsion bars, uprated rear springs and shocks and uprated front control arms.
The AHC was working perfectly - rising and dropping as it should - can you imagine a 220k mile P38 range rover from 2000 still on air? Despite this though, neither of us wanted to deal with a leaking hydraulic suspension system i the middle of the desert. The plan this year is reliability!
In addition to this we also ordered a new radiator and a new condenser (not pictured) so as to renew the cooling system.
Looking at it I found it strange that there is no independent condenser fan and after some research I decided to buy a condensor fan and mishimoto sensor kit - we will get round to mounting and fitting that like they have on the UAE / Australian cars in due course.
So with that, in mid feb we borrowed a friends unit and set to work for a long, greasy, painful day getting the rads and suspension replaced.
The suspension, especially the rear shocks - were an absolute b
d - but we got there in the end. The radiators were actually quite straight forward as there is a lot of room to work in the engine bay. Not so easy to work on now as it's lifted quite a bit!Next up was to fit some spacers to the wheels so that the RADAR/RENEGADE A/T tyres would fit.
Tyres fitted and tracking done...!! and that is where we stand today, give or take.
Next steps:
We have done a third row seat delete - I wanted to put in some off the shelf storage box/drawers but at the prices most charge (£1k+) I couldn't justify it. I found strangely enough one of my suppliers in China actually makes them at a much reduced cost but with an MOQ of a pallet (8 units). So 8 units are on their way and the other 7 we don't use will be re-sold on ebay to hopefully cover our costs.
They should look something like this:
Will also got to work cleaning the interior:
Mmmmm nice
Much better.
It is off to Overland cruisers in May to have the tank fitted, a good look over and anything resolved that needs doing as well as a service. It weighs in around £6.5k currently, if we can get this fully prepped up and sorted for around the £10k mark we will be really chuffed, it's going to look and sound great...
Oh yes did I mention Toby is going to fabricate an exhaust!! The Laser Light LEDs will also re-appear in due course!
Updates will be sporadic but will keep everyone posted on the journey!
Thanks for reading.
Thought I would update this seeing as we have done Tunisie 2025 now...!
Been a hectic year with moving the business, buying a new house and just generally being snowed under!
Let's head back to July 2025 - between the last post and then it had spent too much time down at Overland Cruisers in Hereford - wouldn't recommend to be honest, but anyway - down there it had the extended range fuel tank fitted - giving us around 130-140 litres total capacity - should be more but we can't really work out why - possibly air lock or something - as well as having various other bits done... and some bits not....
I got it back in early July which was a heat wave and shortly after noticed this on a drive home:
Ooooops...!! I soon realised that the viscous fan wasn't working properly - just idling, which explained why the AC would stop working in traffic, something that should have been looked at in hereford. I think the clutch had seized off or something so I ordered a new one from ebay (chinese, £30), and fitted it myself - pretty satisfying to hear the roar of it working properly once it was fitted.
Spoiler alert - the cooling on these engines is absolutely unbelievable - since fixing it, the needle has not moved above it's resting spot at all since, including during flooring it down 5km+ stretches of beach at 5000rpm with the AC running ice cold. It's a beast of the road.
Next step was to take it to Toby's. Aside from anything else, the legendary Lazers from the Yeti had to find their new home
Similarly to the yeti, welding into the crash bar and then through the grille. Neat
Next step was the fun task of fitting the snorkel which was a good craic.
Tada!
Looking a bit more the part now. I also wanted a custom exhaust for it given that the headers on it were stock and leaking when cold.
I obtained a set of headers from Australia. i had done some extensive research (looking on youtube and listening to peoples exhaust videos for 100 series to see which sounded the best) - we settled on some King Brown / Pacemaker headers, and then toby would fab a 3" stainless system back from there. I'll let the pics do the rest:
As always, incredible fabrication and a great result. It wasn't a cheap exhaust to put together, the components alone were some money as it's a lot of stainless and some air freight from australia as well, but the result is 100% worth it, video below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXNfC7ScibQ
It's got everything we wanted from it - the right bass note, classic V8 burble at tickover, and not at all overbearing in the cabin. Spot on!
Now that was done, it was time for the important stuff:
Where to put the beer fridge? Initially I had planned on putting it on the LHS rear drawer but then thought it would be better for it to be semi fixed behind the drivers seat, and run a battery/inverter set up in the same place for charging and power. So again, over to Toby to engineer a solution
Base frame fabbed up and x2 leisure batteries
1500w inverter + 2 leisure batteries.
Seeing as we had clearance out of the door as the fridge was ahead of the inverter we decided to put server rails in so the fridge could be accessed a bit more easily
Locked in place - wired split charger also installed linking the leisures to the main drive battery - nice bit of kit and good kits from those guys - recommend them (www.wiredcampers.co.uk)
At maximum extension - just makes it that little bit easier grabbing the tinnies.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/rS2hPpy5kX0
Video of the operation ^^^
Control panel from the inverter - not a bad bit of kit for sub £100 ebay.
Batteries tied down and secure to stop shorts - this setup is cheap, basic, quite heavy but very effective. It can run the fridge and charge the navigation iPad for over a week with the engine off. The split charger prevents the drive battery from getting too low as well, it's a great solution and came out spot on ! The leisure batteries are also wired to the compressor which was the next thing to install, after this anyway:
Beast mode - engaged! Full 100 series under body protection including gbox and transfer casing. Needed a bit of adjustment and some threads put into the frame but was an easy enough thing to sort. Possibly designed for the 4.2.
Next up was the ARB compressor. Again, this was some money but we wanted to install something that would work every time without question. One of the biggest ballaches last time was the compressor being a battery operated one which was slow, cumbersome and took up unnecessary time, so we went for a built in solution this time.
Mounted to the side of the drawers - before installing the "wings"
Custom plate for the outlet and the switch
Fitted to the wing fascia
Neat, and with the supplied hose just the right length to easily reach all four corners. Coupled with two of these:
https://www.4x4works.co.uk/product/arb-e-z-tyre-de...
And we were certainly ready for fast tyre adjustments on the fly..!! Also handy and powerful compressor for blowing away the sand.
And all boxed off with the wings custom cut and fitted, pretty pleased with how that turned out..!
Of course the alternator immediately shat itself, so I quickly replaced that along with the serpentine belt one afternoon. I also bought a spare...just in case!
A little fiddly but not the worst job I've done on a car thats for sure...
Customary decals fitted - we also removed the old tint and had a window tint guy come in to put some limo tints in it
And with that, we were ready for the off!
I will try and get the pics and journey written up before Xmas, cheers for reading
Been a hectic year with moving the business, buying a new house and just generally being snowed under!
Let's head back to July 2025 - between the last post and then it had spent too much time down at Overland Cruisers in Hereford - wouldn't recommend to be honest, but anyway - down there it had the extended range fuel tank fitted - giving us around 130-140 litres total capacity - should be more but we can't really work out why - possibly air lock or something - as well as having various other bits done... and some bits not....
I got it back in early July which was a heat wave and shortly after noticed this on a drive home:
Ooooops...!! I soon realised that the viscous fan wasn't working properly - just idling, which explained why the AC would stop working in traffic, something that should have been looked at in hereford. I think the clutch had seized off or something so I ordered a new one from ebay (chinese, £30), and fitted it myself - pretty satisfying to hear the roar of it working properly once it was fitted.
Spoiler alert - the cooling on these engines is absolutely unbelievable - since fixing it, the needle has not moved above it's resting spot at all since, including during flooring it down 5km+ stretches of beach at 5000rpm with the AC running ice cold. It's a beast of the road.
Next step was to take it to Toby's. Aside from anything else, the legendary Lazers from the Yeti had to find their new home
Similarly to the yeti, welding into the crash bar and then through the grille. Neat
Next step was the fun task of fitting the snorkel which was a good craic.
Tada!
Looking a bit more the part now. I also wanted a custom exhaust for it given that the headers on it were stock and leaking when cold.
I obtained a set of headers from Australia. i had done some extensive research (looking on youtube and listening to peoples exhaust videos for 100 series to see which sounded the best) - we settled on some King Brown / Pacemaker headers, and then toby would fab a 3" stainless system back from there. I'll let the pics do the rest:
As always, incredible fabrication and a great result. It wasn't a cheap exhaust to put together, the components alone were some money as it's a lot of stainless and some air freight from australia as well, but the result is 100% worth it, video below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXNfC7ScibQ
It's got everything we wanted from it - the right bass note, classic V8 burble at tickover, and not at all overbearing in the cabin. Spot on!
Now that was done, it was time for the important stuff:
Where to put the beer fridge? Initially I had planned on putting it on the LHS rear drawer but then thought it would be better for it to be semi fixed behind the drivers seat, and run a battery/inverter set up in the same place for charging and power. So again, over to Toby to engineer a solution
Base frame fabbed up and x2 leisure batteries
1500w inverter + 2 leisure batteries.
Seeing as we had clearance out of the door as the fridge was ahead of the inverter we decided to put server rails in so the fridge could be accessed a bit more easily
Locked in place - wired split charger also installed linking the leisures to the main drive battery - nice bit of kit and good kits from those guys - recommend them (www.wiredcampers.co.uk)
At maximum extension - just makes it that little bit easier grabbing the tinnies.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/rS2hPpy5kX0
Video of the operation ^^^
Control panel from the inverter - not a bad bit of kit for sub £100 ebay.
Batteries tied down and secure to stop shorts - this setup is cheap, basic, quite heavy but very effective. It can run the fridge and charge the navigation iPad for over a week with the engine off. The split charger prevents the drive battery from getting too low as well, it's a great solution and came out spot on ! The leisure batteries are also wired to the compressor which was the next thing to install, after this anyway:
Beast mode - engaged! Full 100 series under body protection including gbox and transfer casing. Needed a bit of adjustment and some threads put into the frame but was an easy enough thing to sort. Possibly designed for the 4.2.
Next up was the ARB compressor. Again, this was some money but we wanted to install something that would work every time without question. One of the biggest ballaches last time was the compressor being a battery operated one which was slow, cumbersome and took up unnecessary time, so we went for a built in solution this time.
Mounted to the side of the drawers - before installing the "wings"
Custom plate for the outlet and the switch
Fitted to the wing fascia
Neat, and with the supplied hose just the right length to easily reach all four corners. Coupled with two of these:
https://www.4x4works.co.uk/product/arb-e-z-tyre-de...
And we were certainly ready for fast tyre adjustments on the fly..!! Also handy and powerful compressor for blowing away the sand.
And all boxed off with the wings custom cut and fitted, pretty pleased with how that turned out..!
Of course the alternator immediately shat itself, so I quickly replaced that along with the serpentine belt one afternoon. I also bought a spare...just in case!
A little fiddly but not the worst job I've done on a car thats for sure...
Customary decals fitted - we also removed the old tint and had a window tint guy come in to put some limo tints in it
And with that, we were ready for the off!
I will try and get the pics and journey written up before Xmas, cheers for reading
idealstandard said:
Clive (CA2) just reminded me I had neglected to update this. I have since done maroc challenge in April as well and the wheel literally came off.
I will get some time and write up the Tunisia and Morocco reports soon
Please do! I'm planning an entry for Maroc Challenge in 2028, so I love these post-mortems!I will get some time and write up the Tunisia and Morocco reports soon
Days 1, 2, 3 and 4 of the Tunisie Challenge 2025. I did a bit of a st job of documenting this last year i am afraid. I will do my best with the pics I have and describing bits and bobs, but - spoiler alert - no drama really unlike with the Yeti so most of the time was spent driving rather than taking picture of catastrophes...!!
Anyone that read the 2023 Yeti post will know we went with our good friends Paul and Fiona in their 2004 Mitsubishi Shogun Sport 3.0. They were also participating this year and like us had made modifications - well -they changed their tyres. Insa risko turbos a bit like the ones that were on the Yeti in 2023.
We set off the day before the ferry and hauled a decent distance, ending up just outside Villefranche-sur-saone, north of lyon by about half an hour.
With a fuel tank the size of this one, believe it or not only one fuel up required on the way down
Parked up at a perfectly reasonable chain hotel/restaurant type place just off the autoroute
Essentials - tailgate and beer
The next morning was a 200 mile blast down to Marseille, and to join the paddock of vehicles heading over for this years Tunisie Challenge. Some very tasty kit in the car park - check out the suspension setup on this one:
You look at one of these, specifically the dual shocks and think - it's probably more euros in that than our entire car. And I'm not ashamed to admit we are probably into the 100 series for about £16k now (including buying the car) - but it was designed to be a long term project, and do many of these rallies. Suspension is important though and will be on the list soon.
We went with a OME lift kit, upgraded torsion bar and heavy duty front wishbones but standard - non remote - shocks. Not the best setup for if you want to be cracking on, but more on that later
One of the best upgrades yet - packing a jetboil and a coffee filter. Instant fix wherever you go!
After waiting and mooching about looking at the motors for a couple of hours, it was time to go through passport and then join the st show of a queue to get on the ship to Tunis
Once onboard it was time for a nice low chair indoor cigarette activities (if one desired such a thing), and an (admittedly very good) fish supper before basically working out how to kill the other 20 hours.
After about 24 hours we arrived into Tunis and another st show of a customs process, but eventually we were through and immediately papped by the Tunisian Motoring Organisation - with Big Nath bringing up the rear in his M57 Patrol
Arriving to the hotel under the cover of darkness it was a quick look around the car park to check out the vehicles (including this excellent Casselini thing), before heading to bed.
Paul and Fiona had noticed on the way down their AC had stopped working and with 30+ degrees forecasted, that wasn't going to work too well, so en route to the technical checks and registration we found an AC garage on a side street in Tunis. The lovely guy there quickly worked out that the belt had snapped (again) and said maybe a new compressor was needed but they didn't have the part. So paul ended up just buying 3 new belts from him, and had him fit one, and take the other two as spares - fingers crossed!
In there was this lovely Peugeot 404, haven't seen one of these in a long time, the owner was very proud to show us the car and it genuinely started on the button and sounded great.
After that it was time to head to the central compound to register all our details, do the technical checks, install the Stella and then we were ready to go
There was a short qualification session in order to set our place for the start proper the following day which involved a thrash through some scrubby, sandy areas and then onto a 3KM long beach thrash - the idea being get it done as quickly as possible (whilst remaining below the 80KPH limit)!
As this was a first test for the car that we had never even had off road, we took it fairly gingerly but it was fun! We qualified well - i want to say in the top 20.
Lining up and getting ready
Airing up after the run
Love these. I actually daily one of these here in the UK. I am told they are relatively capable but can "st their gearbox easily" so not recommended for one of these trips. Noted..!
Video short of us coming onto the short beach section:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/w2ob5NNt42A
Back at the hotel and the old skool method of getting rid of mossies....
Next day - and I did say I was st on this trip at getting photos! I think that in future I will get the official photo package, then I don't need to worry. This was a run from Tunis down to Sousse and was a pretty long one, going all around the coast with a lot of beach stages, lots of sand and rough stuff. All in all I want to say around 350KM - most of it off road.
"are you sure you don't have the key?"
So yeah.. not many photos however I cherry picked a few from the official page to give you an idea of conditions. Some of the long beach sections were accompanied by statements in the guidebook "pay attention to engine and gearbox temperatures" as they were prolonged. And you could tell the work it was on the car, we stayed mainly in 4H all day, and on the beach sections leaving it stuck in 2nd high and flooring it around 5000rpm would give you a nice 40mph on the sand, it really did feel like surfing with minute inputs required before the car would be taking it's own line and to be honest it worked quite well.
Given our novice understanding of the rules, we still didn't realise that shortest route - not exact route and time wins - so we did very well on the first day but were not the shortest. Looking back, we think we could have kept it planted on a couple of beach sections and cut out some nice sections of track. Anyway its all for the taking part right??
Despite the incredibly hard going for the most part, the car temp gauge stayed exactly where it should, the aux fan never kicked in and we had no warnings from the gearbox unlike on a couple of the diesel 100 series that day.
^^^ to give you an idea of some of the scenery
Fuel up after stage one. We used 110 litres of petrol, there or thereabouts. We also lost our amber lens covers!! Lot of undulating on the beaches and dodgy suspension!
Day one completed! We did pretty well I think, Clive will know for sure as he was tracking us (thankyou!) but I have lost the messages.
Anyway it was time for a few beers and some rest before the stage two was coming up the following day..!
t job of documenting this last year i am afraid. I will do my best with the pics I have and describing bits and bobs, but - spoiler alert - no drama really unlike with the Yeti so most of the time was spent driving rather than taking picture of catastrophes...!!Anyone that read the 2023 Yeti post will know we went with our good friends Paul and Fiona in their 2004 Mitsubishi Shogun Sport 3.0. They were also participating this year and like us had made modifications - well -they changed their tyres. Insa risko turbos a bit like the ones that were on the Yeti in 2023.
We set off the day before the ferry and hauled a decent distance, ending up just outside Villefranche-sur-saone, north of lyon by about half an hour.
With a fuel tank the size of this one, believe it or not only one fuel up required on the way down
Parked up at a perfectly reasonable chain hotel/restaurant type place just off the autoroute
Essentials - tailgate and beer
The next morning was a 200 mile blast down to Marseille, and to join the paddock of vehicles heading over for this years Tunisie Challenge. Some very tasty kit in the car park - check out the suspension setup on this one:
You look at one of these, specifically the dual shocks and think - it's probably more euros in that than our entire car. And I'm not ashamed to admit we are probably into the 100 series for about £16k now (including buying the car) - but it was designed to be a long term project, and do many of these rallies. Suspension is important though and will be on the list soon.
We went with a OME lift kit, upgraded torsion bar and heavy duty front wishbones but standard - non remote - shocks. Not the best setup for if you want to be cracking on, but more on that later
One of the best upgrades yet - packing a jetboil and a coffee filter. Instant fix wherever you go!
After waiting and mooching about looking at the motors for a couple of hours, it was time to go through passport and then join the s
t show of a queue to get on the ship to TunisOnce onboard it was time for a nice low chair indoor cigarette activities (if one desired such a thing), and an (admittedly very good) fish supper before basically working out how to kill the other 20 hours.
After about 24 hours we arrived into Tunis and another s
t show of a customs process, but eventually we were through and immediately papped by the Tunisian Motoring Organisation - with Big Nath bringing up the rear in his M57 PatrolArriving to the hotel under the cover of darkness it was a quick look around the car park to check out the vehicles (including this excellent Casselini thing), before heading to bed.
Paul and Fiona had noticed on the way down their AC had stopped working and with 30+ degrees forecasted, that wasn't going to work too well, so en route to the technical checks and registration we found an AC garage on a side street in Tunis. The lovely guy there quickly worked out that the belt had snapped (again) and said maybe a new compressor was needed but they didn't have the part. So paul ended up just buying 3 new belts from him, and had him fit one, and take the other two as spares - fingers crossed!
In there was this lovely Peugeot 404, haven't seen one of these in a long time, the owner was very proud to show us the car and it genuinely started on the button and sounded great.
After that it was time to head to the central compound to register all our details, do the technical checks, install the Stella and then we were ready to go
There was a short qualification session in order to set our place for the start proper the following day which involved a thrash through some scrubby, sandy areas and then onto a 3KM long beach thrash - the idea being get it done as quickly as possible (whilst remaining below the 80KPH limit)!
As this was a first test for the car that we had never even had off road, we took it fairly gingerly but it was fun! We qualified well - i want to say in the top 20.
Lining up and getting ready
Airing up after the run
Love these. I actually daily one of these here in the UK. I am told they are relatively capable but can "s
t their gearbox easily" so not recommended for one of these trips. Noted..!Video short of us coming onto the short beach section:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/w2ob5NNt42A
Back at the hotel and the old skool method of getting rid of mossies....
Next day - and I did say I was s
t on this trip at getting photos! I think that in future I will get the official photo package, then I don't need to worry. This was a run from Tunis down to Sousse and was a pretty long one, going all around the coast with a lot of beach stages, lots of sand and rough stuff. All in all I want to say around 350KM - most of it off road."are you sure you don't have the key?"
So yeah.. not many photos however I cherry picked a few from the official page to give you an idea of conditions. Some of the long beach sections were accompanied by statements in the guidebook "pay attention to engine and gearbox temperatures" as they were prolonged. And you could tell the work it was on the car, we stayed mainly in 4H all day, and on the beach sections leaving it stuck in 2nd high and flooring it around 5000rpm would give you a nice 40mph on the sand, it really did feel like surfing with minute inputs required before the car would be taking it's own line and to be honest it worked quite well.
Given our novice understanding of the rules, we still didn't realise that shortest route - not exact route and time wins - so we did very well on the first day but were not the shortest. Looking back, we think we could have kept it planted on a couple of beach sections and cut out some nice sections of track. Anyway its all for the taking part right??
Despite the incredibly hard going for the most part, the car temp gauge stayed exactly where it should, the aux fan never kicked in and we had no warnings from the gearbox unlike on a couple of the diesel 100 series that day.
^^^ to give you an idea of some of the scenery
Fuel up after stage one. We used 110 litres of petrol, there or thereabouts. We also lost our amber lens covers!! Lot of undulating on the beaches and dodgy suspension!
Day one completed! We did pretty well I think, Clive will know for sure as he was tracking us (thankyou!) but I have lost the messages.
Anyway it was time for a few beers and some rest before the stage two was coming up the following day..!
Thought I'd write the rest of the trip up, to be honest we were both less than useless last year with getting pics together of the trip, and given I have since done the Maroc in spring with my wife, and me and Wil are doing Maroc in the winter, it is a good idea to post this now so I can get on with posting the updates from Maroc in spring and then maybe do the winter one live?!
Doing our best to keep it at or near 80KPH on the smooth dust/surface
Airing the tyres after a softer section. Tunisia there are a lot more stop and start sections (to get tyre pressures right and not get into trouble) whereas in Morocco I found you could basically drive around all day on pretty much the same pressure
Precision motoring!
Main road or surface of mars? Take your pick
We kept leapfrogging this Grenadier being driven by some polish guys, they seemed to keep getting it stuck. Not sure if it was intentional as they were doing quite a significant filming effort on the trip, the video is on youtube and it's quite good. I think by the end of Day two we were in the top ten.
Day 3 and the obligatory mahoosive dune to drive up.
Video HERE:
Volume up, for V8 goodness!
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/8xitC0FRHn8
Day 3 was mainly sand and was great fun, plenty of tricky bits. We left our tyres at 16PSI all day and it was fine with all the surfaces, great tyres considering they are cheapies.
I can't remember what was wrong with these pandas but we had plenty of tools so stopped and got their under tray off and helped them fiddle with the car until it fired up again. Day 3 was quite a long, arduous day which was almost / was impossible to make the time limit. Paul and Fiona broke down as they ran out of petrol in the Shogun, we were okay with our giant tank but saw off around 125 litres for the day.
The V8 Land Cruiser in it's natural habitat. By the end of Stage 3 we were still well inside the top 10.
The camp zmela at the end of the fourth day. I'd love to say the day went smoothly, but you'll notice the wheel is in the boot - that was actually delivered to us by big Nath in the camp, as it had sheared off somewhere along the way. And, just 900 metres from camp/end of the stage, we took a wrong turn.... and.....:
I was navigating so it was my fk up. And as i realised the gravity of my fk up, I said to Wil... "Stop". And he stopped. Big mistake. bogged down and in a pretty precarious position
The sand is as soft as flour in Tunisia, you dig and dig and it seems like nothing is happening. Then we saw Paul and Fiona approaching so we waved them down hoping they'd stop just before the ridge and tow us, unfortunately Paul came flying over the ridge and promptly got stuck as well:
Paul got a tow out, but as we were of the in for a penny attitude at this point, we were determined to get out under our own steam. Eventually I persuade will that we could jack the car in the sand (he was concerned about rollover but I thought fk it). We used one sand ladder with the jack on it and lifted the car on one side, dug out the front right tyre, managed to wedge a sand ladder under it and then dropped the pressures to 5PSI. Drive and low range, locker engaged and we got out! Wish I had a video. Rui was on the scene and was like "I can't beliebve you just drove that out"! Happy with that!
Rear diff failure on this LR2, they had it sorted by the morning as they brought two spares i believe. Lol
We noticed our car was sitting quite low at the front and someone said they thought that the guys that put the torsion bar on hadn't done it right, so we borrowed a massive socket and cranked it up
Much better!
Desert refuel. We averaged about 95 litres a day in Tunisia, compared to around 70 litres a day in Morocco, its much tougher going in Tunisia and definitely requires a lot more thought.
And unfortunately - "thats all folks" - I have done a truly embarrassing job of documenting this! Two more stages to go and nothing on my phone. They went fine but by this point we were out of the running so took it relatively easy, and enjoyed the journey.
In true wil and alex fashion, we did Genoa to Buckinghamshire in a one-er after getting off the ferry on the Saturday afternoon, made it back around 5AM. Another successful trip (ie we made it home), will post the Maroc spring one in the coming week and try do a better job of documenting future trips...
Doing our best to keep it at or near 80KPH on the smooth dust/surface
Airing the tyres after a softer section. Tunisia there are a lot more stop and start sections (to get tyre pressures right and not get into trouble) whereas in Morocco I found you could basically drive around all day on pretty much the same pressure
Precision motoring!
Main road or surface of mars? Take your pick
We kept leapfrogging this Grenadier being driven by some polish guys, they seemed to keep getting it stuck. Not sure if it was intentional as they were doing quite a significant filming effort on the trip, the video is on youtube and it's quite good. I think by the end of Day two we were in the top ten.
Day 3 and the obligatory mahoosive dune to drive up.
Video HERE:
Volume up, for V8 goodness!
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/8xitC0FRHn8
Day 3 was mainly sand and was great fun, plenty of tricky bits. We left our tyres at 16PSI all day and it was fine with all the surfaces, great tyres considering they are cheapies.
I can't remember what was wrong with these pandas but we had plenty of tools so stopped and got their under tray off and helped them fiddle with the car until it fired up again. Day 3 was quite a long, arduous day which was almost / was impossible to make the time limit. Paul and Fiona broke down as they ran out of petrol in the Shogun, we were okay with our giant tank but saw off around 125 litres for the day.
The V8 Land Cruiser in it's natural habitat. By the end of Stage 3 we were still well inside the top 10.
The camp zmela at the end of the fourth day. I'd love to say the day went smoothly, but you'll notice the wheel is in the boot - that was actually delivered to us by big Nath in the camp, as it had sheared off somewhere along the way. And, just 900 metres from camp/end of the stage, we took a wrong turn.... and.....:
I was navigating so it was my f
k up. And as i realised the gravity of my fk up, I said to Wil... "Stop". And he stopped. Big mistake. bogged down and in a pretty precarious positionThe sand is as soft as flour in Tunisia, you dig and dig and it seems like nothing is happening. Then we saw Paul and Fiona approaching so we waved them down hoping they'd stop just before the ridge and tow us, unfortunately Paul came flying over the ridge and promptly got stuck as well:
Paul got a tow out, but as we were of the in for a penny attitude at this point, we were determined to get out under our own steam. Eventually I persuade will that we could jack the car in the sand (he was concerned about rollover but I thought f
k it). We used one sand ladder with the jack on it and lifted the car on one side, dug out the front right tyre, managed to wedge a sand ladder under it and then dropped the pressures to 5PSI. Drive and low range, locker engaged and we got out! Wish I had a video. Rui was on the scene and was like "I can't beliebve you just drove that out"! Happy with that!Rear diff failure on this LR2, they had it sorted by the morning as they brought two spares i believe. Lol
We noticed our car was sitting quite low at the front and someone said they thought that the guys that put the torsion bar on hadn't done it right, so we borrowed a massive socket and cranked it up
Much better!
Desert refuel. We averaged about 95 litres a day in Tunisia, compared to around 70 litres a day in Morocco, its much tougher going in Tunisia and definitely requires a lot more thought.
And unfortunately - "thats all folks" - I have done a truly embarrassing job of documenting this! Two more stages to go and nothing on my phone. They went fine but by this point we were out of the running so took it relatively easy, and enjoyed the journey.
In true wil and alex fashion, we did Genoa to Buckinghamshire in a one-er after getting off the ferry on the Saturday afternoon, made it back around 5AM. Another successful trip (ie we made it home), will post the Maroc spring one in the coming week and try do a better job of documenting future trips...
Earlier this year, Mrs idealstandard said she fancied giving one of these challenges a go, which was a very pleasant surprise indeed! With no hesitateion, we booked onto Maroc Spring edition 2026. The timing was spot on what with the Iran situation kicking off and fuel prices skyrocketing, but hey ho!
As my wife was competing one of her horses in and around this time, I drew the short straw so started the journey alone
[url]
A very moody and miserable Portsmouth on the 24th March. Brittany Ferries do two night sailings out of Portsmouth now which is unfortunate, but the timings just didn't work for the Plymouth route.
I've done these sailings probably 20-30 times as my Mum lives in Portugal, but this time was the roughest i've ever experienced it, it was quite the adventure!
Pleased to be returning to dry land...!!
Lots of wind turbines are made / distributed through spain it seems
Arriving into Santander nice and early, and with Mrs idealstandard not arriving into Alicante until 8PM resulted in a really lovely, leisurely drive through Spain. There was a bridge I wanted to see near madrid, and was a good opportunity to supply the car with beer, wine, water and food for the trip.
Fuel stop and a quick coffee, love these jetboils! The Spanish government had cut fuel duty which was nice, I believe petrol was around 1.70 and diesel around 1.90.
The San Pablo bridge in Cuenca. lovely little town as well, highly recommend a visit.
The drive from Cuenca to Alicante is about 3 hours, and the start of the drive took the stunning N-420 road for some miles before picking up the motorway. It was deserted, 18-20 degrees and sunny and I had a lovely chilled time. I found a random place to stop next to the river and enjoyed a coffee and some lovely Spanish seafood and just took in the peace and quiet. It's moments like this that often have me questioning whether or not to keep up with the hustle and bustle of the uK!
Mrs idealstandard arrived on time with easyjet and we drove down to Almeria to grab a hotel, arriving around midnight.
Next morning and the only photo I got in the car park as was too busy chatting! We had 7 hours on the ferry to Nador, and soon enough we were in Morocco and at our hotel for the night
We enjoyed a nourishing pot noodle and glass of beer/wine and grabbed an early night!
It was quite a long drive down to the starting point - Erfoud - so we got an early start.
Some gorgeous sights along the way
And some much needed petrol. around £1 a litre or so
Very pleasant atmosphere at the hotel for two nights
There were several lifted CLKs like this on the rally
Starlink fitted for this trip to negate the need for roaming on the phones
Worked fantastically well
At the start line on day one
New nav setup this time. Using the iPad with TwoNav for alerts, and then a Garmin Tread XL for the turn by turn stuff as it's so much more accurate and easier to use. And then using the iPhone in a mount for a GPS speedo. All the gear and all that!
Stage one complete, due to heavy rains the week before there was a change to the route, in fact there was a change most days, however overall it was a good fun stage, with only one bit that was slightly challenging due to deep mud - foot flat and it was no problem, but with the weight of this car if we had slowed or come to a stop, we would have been screwed. Our air conditioning stopped working and we had quite an amusing situation with the pax window which stayed down (assumed faulty motor) so we got completely covered in dust. We found out when we got back that I had inadvertently hit the child lock button which also locks the passenger window from all switches. Proper moron rookie error!
But overall a very good stage, and we cut some corners nicely, Emma found the Tread XL easy to use and navigate from
Nick and Tess meanwhile in the Suzuki were having suspension issues which required running repairs late into the night
Link road between tracks on stage two
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ycaswZagJA
Not much to see around these parts!
It was after this that we realised that we really do have the wrong suspension. The shocks are just appalling, on rougher stuff they overheat almost straight away and it's a horrendous experience for all, so we were glad for the day being relatively flat for the most part
Nick and Tess meanwhile had now bent a shock I believe so a rebuild was required
We we happy to offer our heavy jack and some light refreshments as a show of moral support
The next day and stage 3 was going really rather well until it wasn't. Rookie errors again - after airing down the tyres to get through some dunes which claimed a Jeep Wrangler to fire amongst other calamities, we were in the zone and forgot to stop to air up again. At this point we were touch and go as it was a longer day - we were desperate to make our time and were really pushing on... Unfortunately, that, coupled with a rocky river bed meant we went a tyre down.
To make matters worse, earlier on I hard heard a clunk and knew something had happened. Two rallies in a row, we lost our spare wheel, and this was after we had fully reinforced the mechanism. Gutting as it meant we were in for a two hour wait for Roy or Andy to chase up in their 100 series and lend us a spare.
Worse places to break down though.
Unfortunately, our problems did not end there.
Adding to the list of rookie errors, once Roy arrived I fitted the wheel he kindly lent us. We finished the last 5 KM of the stage and then rejoined the main road. Accelerating through 80KPH there was a very concerning wheel whobble - before I was able to slow the car and pull over, the wheel was off and fking off ahead of us down the road. I had basically no control at all, and luckily there were no big ditches about so I managed to get the car stopped. But that was fking scary, let me tell you.
I wandered off down the road and found the wheel - all of the holes ovalled out - I'd been a tt and not torqued the bolts properly. Stupid mistake.
Our knackered tyre from earlier being fixed late that night.
Earlier in the day when the wheel hadn't fallen off yet.
It had been quite the day, and to be honest the wheel coming off at nearly 50mph isn't an experience I'd like to have again in the near future. Whilst we had our wheel sorted, we decided that given we had screwed it on time in the day, we would have the next day off, go and see if we could fix the AC and make our way to the bivouac ourselves, before picking up the rally again the day after. At the end of the day, it's not the dakar rally, it's about having a good time.
Not quite an area of outstanding natural beauty, but at least it was warm
Air con regassed by a couple of lovely chaps in a fridge repair place. We suspect that the O ring into the condensor might not have been seated correctly, as its a very very slow leak indeed, on a vac test it reports no issues at all
Scenery on the way to the bivouac.
The worlds most dangerous petrol station. You could hear the petrol cans fizzing. I told Mrs idealstandard to stay well clear! We preordered 50 litres and fully thought we wouldn't be able to use it all, but it all went in
Love these old peugeots. The guys that were in this looked constantly miserable though, covered in sand, filthy and hot
Worse places to watch the sun go down though
Apologies but after this we were just in holiday mode, didn't really take the rest of the rally seriously (although we did finish every day within time) and just set about having a nice time. There were some great bits on the day after the bivouac, with the infamous sand bowl - wish I'd got some videos as we powered out of there, leaving 20+ cars in our wake, V8 thundering away.
Nicest car in Morocco?
Another day, another fillup
And we made it to the end! The last day was actually really cool, a treasure hunt with no fixed route where you had to collect way points in order. Was good fun.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUMVnAlf0Ck
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaXqhttJ9_k
Having a nice play around in the dunes to kill some time, good fun!
If you make it to the end, I class that as a win!
And that was that, we had a minor issue on the long drive back as the rear brake hose split open and all of our brake fluid went on the floor. Luckily we managed to stop okay and with the help of the organisation borrowed a set of mole grips and got back to spain on front brakes only. Needs must!
Overall thoughts on Maroc Challenge vs Tunisie Challenge:
- it's a lot easier on the engines, but harsher on suspension
- less opportunities to get stuck, better visibility on most stages so more free flowing
- we were using 60-70 litres of petrol a day vs 100+ in Tunisia
- Long way down to get there from the UK
- food/drink/hotels etc not as good as in Tunisia, with higher costs
- fuel higher costs also
But let's be honest, it was a great craic! Mrs IS enjoyed herself and we remained marreid at the end - her competitive side came out for all to see, and she really relished navigating and the overall experience.
For anyone on the fence about doing one of these trips, I'd say just do it! You only live once! And once again teams with cheap, run of the mill, basically unmodified cars having a whale of a time, as well as those with six figure builds, it's got something for everyone.
I am doing the winter edition with will in a months time, looking forward to it! The car is currently still in Spain with big nath, we are bringing the spare wheels inboard to avoid yet more losses, and possibly a suspension upgrade if the parts arrive in time.
As my wife was competing one of her horses in and around this time, I drew the short straw so started the journey alone
[url]
A very moody and miserable Portsmouth on the 24th March. Brittany Ferries do two night sailings out of Portsmouth now which is unfortunate, but the timings just didn't work for the Plymouth route.
I've done these sailings probably 20-30 times as my Mum lives in Portugal, but this time was the roughest i've ever experienced it, it was quite the adventure!
Pleased to be returning to dry land...!!
Lots of wind turbines are made / distributed through spain it seems
Arriving into Santander nice and early, and with Mrs idealstandard not arriving into Alicante until 8PM resulted in a really lovely, leisurely drive through Spain. There was a bridge I wanted to see near madrid, and was a good opportunity to supply the car with beer, wine, water and food for the trip.
Fuel stop and a quick coffee, love these jetboils! The Spanish government had cut fuel duty which was nice, I believe petrol was around 1.70 and diesel around 1.90.
The San Pablo bridge in Cuenca. lovely little town as well, highly recommend a visit.
The drive from Cuenca to Alicante is about 3 hours, and the start of the drive took the stunning N-420 road for some miles before picking up the motorway. It was deserted, 18-20 degrees and sunny and I had a lovely chilled time. I found a random place to stop next to the river and enjoyed a coffee and some lovely Spanish seafood and just took in the peace and quiet. It's moments like this that often have me questioning whether or not to keep up with the hustle and bustle of the uK!
Mrs idealstandard arrived on time with easyjet and we drove down to Almeria to grab a hotel, arriving around midnight.
Next morning and the only photo I got in the car park as was too busy chatting! We had 7 hours on the ferry to Nador, and soon enough we were in Morocco and at our hotel for the night
We enjoyed a nourishing pot noodle and glass of beer/wine and grabbed an early night!
It was quite a long drive down to the starting point - Erfoud - so we got an early start.
Some gorgeous sights along the way
And some much needed petrol. around £1 a litre or so
Very pleasant atmosphere at the hotel for two nights
There were several lifted CLKs like this on the rally
Starlink fitted for this trip to negate the need for roaming on the phones
Worked fantastically well
At the start line on day one
New nav setup this time. Using the iPad with TwoNav for alerts, and then a Garmin Tread XL for the turn by turn stuff as it's so much more accurate and easier to use. And then using the iPhone in a mount for a GPS speedo. All the gear and all that!
Stage one complete, due to heavy rains the week before there was a change to the route, in fact there was a change most days, however overall it was a good fun stage, with only one bit that was slightly challenging due to deep mud - foot flat and it was no problem, but with the weight of this car if we had slowed or come to a stop, we would have been screwed. Our air conditioning stopped working and we had quite an amusing situation with the pax window which stayed down (assumed faulty motor) so we got completely covered in dust. We found out when we got back that I had inadvertently hit the child lock button which also locks the passenger window from all switches. Proper moron rookie error!
But overall a very good stage, and we cut some corners nicely, Emma found the Tread XL easy to use and navigate from
Nick and Tess meanwhile in the Suzuki were having suspension issues which required running repairs late into the night
Link road between tracks on stage two
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ycaswZagJA
Not much to see around these parts!
It was after this that we realised that we really do have the wrong suspension. The shocks are just appalling, on rougher stuff they overheat almost straight away and it's a horrendous experience for all, so we were glad for the day being relatively flat for the most part
Nick and Tess meanwhile had now bent a shock I believe so a rebuild was required
We we happy to offer our heavy jack and some light refreshments as a show of moral support
The next day and stage 3 was going really rather well until it wasn't. Rookie errors again - after airing down the tyres to get through some dunes which claimed a Jeep Wrangler to fire amongst other calamities, we were in the zone and forgot to stop to air up again. At this point we were touch and go as it was a longer day - we were desperate to make our time and were really pushing on... Unfortunately, that, coupled with a rocky river bed meant we went a tyre down.
To make matters worse, earlier on I hard heard a clunk and knew something had happened. Two rallies in a row, we lost our spare wheel, and this was after we had fully reinforced the mechanism. Gutting as it meant we were in for a two hour wait for Roy or Andy to chase up in their 100 series and lend us a spare.
Worse places to break down though.
Unfortunately, our problems did not end there.
Adding to the list of rookie errors, once Roy arrived I fitted the wheel he kindly lent us. We finished the last 5 KM of the stage and then rejoined the main road. Accelerating through 80KPH there was a very concerning wheel whobble - before I was able to slow the car and pull over, the wheel was off and f
king off ahead of us down the road. I had basically no control at all, and luckily there were no big ditches about so I managed to get the car stopped. But that was fking scary, let me tell you.I wandered off down the road and found the wheel - all of the holes ovalled out - I'd been a t
t and not torqued the bolts properly. Stupid mistake.Our knackered tyre from earlier being fixed late that night.
Earlier in the day when the wheel hadn't fallen off yet.
It had been quite the day, and to be honest the wheel coming off at nearly 50mph isn't an experience I'd like to have again in the near future. Whilst we had our wheel sorted, we decided that given we had screwed it on time in the day, we would have the next day off, go and see if we could fix the AC and make our way to the bivouac ourselves, before picking up the rally again the day after. At the end of the day, it's not the dakar rally, it's about having a good time.
Not quite an area of outstanding natural beauty, but at least it was warm
Air con regassed by a couple of lovely chaps in a fridge repair place. We suspect that the O ring into the condensor might not have been seated correctly, as its a very very slow leak indeed, on a vac test it reports no issues at all
Scenery on the way to the bivouac.
The worlds most dangerous petrol station. You could hear the petrol cans fizzing. I told Mrs idealstandard to stay well clear! We preordered 50 litres and fully thought we wouldn't be able to use it all, but it all went in
Love these old peugeots. The guys that were in this looked constantly miserable though, covered in sand, filthy and hot
Worse places to watch the sun go down though
Apologies but after this we were just in holiday mode, didn't really take the rest of the rally seriously (although we did finish every day within time) and just set about having a nice time. There were some great bits on the day after the bivouac, with the infamous sand bowl - wish I'd got some videos as we powered out of there, leaving 20+ cars in our wake, V8 thundering away.
Nicest car in Morocco?
Another day, another fillup
And we made it to the end! The last day was actually really cool, a treasure hunt with no fixed route where you had to collect way points in order. Was good fun.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUMVnAlf0Ck
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaXqhttJ9_k
Having a nice play around in the dunes to kill some time, good fun!
If you make it to the end, I class that as a win!
And that was that, we had a minor issue on the long drive back as the rear brake hose split open and all of our brake fluid went on the floor. Luckily we managed to stop okay and with the help of the organisation borrowed a set of mole grips and got back to spain on front brakes only. Needs must!
Overall thoughts on Maroc Challenge vs Tunisie Challenge:
- it's a lot easier on the engines, but harsher on suspension
- less opportunities to get stuck, better visibility on most stages so more free flowing
- we were using 60-70 litres of petrol a day vs 100+ in Tunisia
- Long way down to get there from the UK
- food/drink/hotels etc not as good as in Tunisia, with higher costs
- fuel higher costs also
But let's be honest, it was a great craic! Mrs IS enjoyed herself and we remained marreid at the end - her competitive side came out for all to see, and she really relished navigating and the overall experience.
For anyone on the fence about doing one of these trips, I'd say just do it! You only live once! And once again teams with cheap, run of the mill, basically unmodified cars having a whale of a time, as well as those with six figure builds, it's got something for everyone.
I am doing the winter edition with will in a months time, looking forward to it! The car is currently still in Spain with big nath, we are bringing the spare wheels inboard to avoid yet more losses, and possibly a suspension upgrade if the parts arrive in time.
Edited by idealstandard on Sunday 1st November 14:09
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