Top 5 Overland Vehicles I considered for Africa

welcome back to another episode of the road shows me my name is dan greck and today a topic where I get asked all the time what

vehicles

I

considered

when I set out to drive around Africa so obviously there are a lot of different options on the market and I went to I intentionally traveled to purchase a vehicle knowing it was specifically for that purpose, so if you've ever wondered what

vehicles

I

considered

, I'll go over all the pros and cons and all the decisions. creation process now that will help you figure out which vehicle meets your needs so stay let's get into all the details right now when you were planning and dreaming of driving all over Africa you were sitting at work every day making money and you were I actually just drove a rust bucket Subaru to work every day, so I knew that for one vehicle I was specifically setting out to buy something for that trip, I didn't need to be a daily driver, I didn't need to do double duty, I was expressly so. .

When purchasing one for the expedition to Africa, these criteria I applied was starting from a blank sheet of paper. You could have anything you wanted, so when we go down the list, the number one vehicle consideration or the number one option there is no question. a 70 series toyota land cruiser, this is without a doubt the most common vehicle for

overland

ers driving around the world and certainly on the

africa

n continent it easily beats any other four wheel drive vehicle two to one, in some countries I would say it is ten to one. The Toyota Land Cruiser 70 Series really dominates the global four-wheel drive vehicle market, and certainly the United Nations, the Red Cross, all those kinds of NGOs, they buy them by the thousands, there are fleets of them running around Africa, all of them.

Governments, any industry or any company like mining or forestry that wants to reach remote places in Africa are using the Land Cruiser 70 series. It is the best. It is probably the most reliable. It has the best parts support and there are certainly tons of aftermarket options. There are many companies from South Africa, Australia and even Europe, there are pop-up roofs, bumpers, suspension, they usually come from the factory with two tanks of gasoline or diesel and they have many really good diesel engine options, certainly the one Hz. Engine With a non-turbo straight-six, this is probably the most reliable engine ever installed in a four-wheel drive vehicle anywhere in the world.

I've seen them in Africa taking incredible abuse for half a million miles and they still work as good as they did from the factory so that was easily the number one choice but there's a big reason I didn't get one and it's just because you basically can't get one here in North America. I live in Canada these days and you know, a lot of people live in the US and the 70 series land cruiser was never sold here as a factory option which means to get one you have to do some kind of gray import here in Canada, you would have to be 15 years old in the United States.

For us, it would have to be 25 years old and, certainly, there are people who bring them and they are for sale. The first problem is that they are horribly expensive, easily three or four times more than a comparable four-wheel drive vehicle that existed on sale in the North American market. The next problem is parts and things are going to be harder to get here. . You can't just go to a Toyota dealer and get parts for an engine that they never sold in North America, certainly the aftermarket products, the suspension. bumpers aren't that easy to get, all those problems are certainly something to think about and people ask me, do you know why I didn't go to another country and buy one?

There are a variety of reasons why that doesn't work, many Countries will not allow a foreigner to register a vehicle, even if he could once he is on the road how is he going to renew the registration? The insurance does have a pass card. How are you going to renew it when you are away once the trip is over, will you take it back to the country where you bought it and try to sell it there? These are all reasons why shopping internationally actually makes your trip much more logistically complicated. Also North America, especially the United States, is pretty much the cheapest developed country in the world in terms of parts and products you can buy, so if you have four wheel drive, if you want to add good tires, a winch, some bumpers, a refrigerator, maybe a pop-up roof and solar panels, those things are literally half the price in the United States than they would be if you tried to equip your vehicle in Europe or South Africa or wherever else in the world you go, so That certainly for me when I was thinking about equipping a vehicle.

I was going to save twenty thousand dollars by buying just a regular North American vehicle and I was going to save another twenty thousand dollars by buying all the accessories and all the upgrades here in North America, so while the 70 series Land Cruiser is a fantastic option for people who live in North America. It's not very realistic or very practical and that's why I didn't choose a second option as a vehicle to drive around Africa. I think again there would be no argument about this, it's the Land Rover Defender 110, this would be the second most common vehicle driven around the world by

overland

ers and they certainly have an amazing reputation.

They're really cavernous inside, much bigger than my GPS and you know, they come. with the 200 tdi or 300 tdi diesel engines those things are fantastic, little four cylinders, really reliable and runs all day, friends in Africa, we are approaching 30 miles per gallon and this is a big, heavy four wheel drive with a winch, big tires and a roof rack, they had tons of gear, they just cruised all day, it's not a speed demon, you're not winning any land speed records, but for what it offers the defender 110 is an option fantastic, although why not? I don't understand one, it's the same story: they were actually sold in North America.

I think 500 of them in total were sold here, so other than that, you have to bring them back as a kind of gray import, so again they're going to be. older again, they are very expensive, hard to get spares for the same reasons I didn't choose a 70 series land cruiser, they all apply to the defender 110 too and yes I have an Australian passport or I could have arranged it with My dad bought one in Australia and then maybe register it and then ship it to wherever I go at the beginning of Africa, but again I drive a different vehicle, you know, registered in some random country that doesn't match my or my driver's passport.

Uh license, if you have it in Australia, the steering wheel will be on the right and I've talked before that right-hand drive vehicles are not ideal for traveling around the world, there are countries that don't allow them. So, once again, I didn't want to buy a vehicle that simply didn't exist in North America. On the list, the third option would be a Land Cruiser that was available in North America, so that would be the 80 series or even the 100 series and I certainly saw a lot of them traveling in Africa and they are a relatively common choice for overlanders, so which I think are a great option and there are certainly a lot of replacement parts that you can get pop-up roofs.

I can certainly get suspension and bumpers and things like that, but there was really one thing that really put me off and that is that when you buy them in North America, they never come with diesel engines, so you have to run whatever gasoline engine they had. it's usually a big v6 or even a v8 and from what I've read online once you put them in expedition mode you know you add some bumpers, you add a refrigerator, your solar panels, all your camping gear, all of it. your clothes, all your food once they are really so heavy that these Land Cruisers get about eight or ten miles per gallon, which is mind-blowing since it's about double the fuel consumption of what I drive, for which would not only have doubled the amount of gasoline I had to buy.

It's a huge hit to my budget. In reality, I don't know if I would have been able to complete the trip. I don't know if it would have been possible to carry enough fuel to drive to other places I went. Know? sometimes. I had like 35 gallons loaded into this and I went the distance on Congo Lake Turkana in Kenya to do that same segment in a Land Cruiser like that. It would have taken 70 gallons of gas, which is a huge amount to carry, it's obviously super heavy. Gasoline is flammable and of course I was also in countries that had shortages and sometimes it was hard to get gas and diesel so you know being able to buy 10 or 20 gallons maybe doable but if you show up and say you want to buy. 50 or 60 gallons, I think you're going to have a real problem with that, so both the 80 series and the 100 series, I think they're good options because getting 8 or 10 miles per gallon just negates it completely and, in my opinion, In my opinion, it actually makes them not viable at all and it is a vehicle that I will never drive because I don't have that kind of money to spend on gas and then going down the list, there are many vehicles in North America that people I think I should have considered it, so certainly a Toyota Tacoma is an example, the new Bronco that's coming, you know, is just an example or even things like the Colorado or an F-150 or all of these types of vehicles and the reason why the one I didn't choose.

Any of those things are because they are simply not world class vehicles, many people think the Tacoma is based on the Toyota Hilux and that is simply not true. No Hilux has ever had the same engine as a Tacoma. No Hilux has ever had the same transmission. They certainly don't have the same frame, they aren't the same vehicle at all, so if you take your Tacoma to Africa, none of them exist. I never saw one on the entire continent. The same goes for a tundra, they simply don't exist. If you go to the Toyota dealer, they won't be able to get you parts.

Chances are, they won't be able to diagnose you if you have computer problems. All of that essentially doesn't exist in Africa, which in my view makes it a pretty bad choice. As much as those vehicles are easy for North Americans to purchase, and certainly if you're wandering around North America, yes, maybe that's a good option, if you're looking to go global, you should do some research to see if your vehicle exists in the places you're going to use it. do and if it doesn't exist and you know there just hasn't been support for that vehicle, I would seriously reconsider taking it because you're going to have a real problem if you have a mechanical failure or even if you just have a fender ding and bust the radiator or minor things like those, you are going to have a real problem getting parts and that will really undermine your trip and make it less pleasant, which brings me to the decision that actually done and it is the jeep wrangler rubicon and the reasons speak to everything that already I have spoken.

They are very easy to purchase here in North America, they are certainly inexpensive. This one I drove around Africa cost me 18,000 in total. They are extremely capable from the factory, this Rubicon has front and rear differential locks, has a low range transfer case, solid front axle, so it ticks all the boxes in terms of four wheel drive capabilities and obviously, Aftermarket support for this is huge. You're looking at the front bumper here, the snorkel, the pop-up roof, they were all designed specifically for this jeep wrangler model, so they're all direct bolt-ons and they're all made in North America, like I said before.

They are all relatively affordable and the last thing that many people don't know about the Wrangler is that it is actually a global vehicle and the good thing is that any country in the world that has a jeep dealer definitely sold this exact jeep. with this engine with this transmission everything is identical the axles are the same all over the world, so while it is true that there are no jeep dealers in the congo, there are jeep dealers in neighboring angola, so although I would not have been able to obtain dealer support In every country in Africa, certainly, in every couple of countries there were dealers or sometimes they are what are called gray dealers, where the country does not officially have jeep, but you can contact the dealer in the neighboring country and They will send you the parts you need and once I connected with some Jeep enthusiasts in South Africa, they were very excited that they were going to send me parts no matter what country I was in, so on the surface people say that the Jeep maybe it doesn't have the best pieces. support in a funny sense, you will have better road support for this in

africa

than you would for a toyota tacoma, although toyota has great road support in general in africa, they only have it for vehicles that exist in africa or that are common in Africa they are not going to have parts for a vehicle that simply does not exist on that continent, so on the surface it might seem like the jeep wrangler is a bit of an odd choice andIt's certainly an unusual choice, but when In fact, looking at the reasoning it turns out to be a pretty smart choice and as I tested it worked very well and I had an amazing expedition on a fraction of the budget if I had been driving a vehicle that I had to import for a hundred thousand dollars or a vehicle that got eight or ten miles per gallon overall, I think this was a very good choice, so I hope all of that was helpful and I hope it helps you see what criteria are worth applying to judging when If you're looking for a vehicle that will meet your overland needs, obviously if you're going out for a weekend it's not that critical, even up to Alaska you'll probably be able to find parts and whatever, but if you're looking to cross the congo if you want driving through the Bolivian salt flats, this kind of thing is important and you want to do a little homework and do a little research and understand what will meet your needs, so if you found this useful, like, subscribe to the channel and I .

I'd love to see your comments below about what vehicle you're using and how you think it fits with everything I just said. Am I crazy or does what I just said make sense? And once again, thank you to all my followers on Patreon. you only get these videos, but by supporting me you get behind the scenes access to my next expedition, so today I have talked about the vehicle I chose to drive around Africa on Patreon, right now I am talking about the vehicle I have selected for my next expedition to a new continent and I'm going through the same thoughts and ideas to make decisions based on where I'm going, what vehicle makes sense and why I chose that vehicle, so if you're interested in finding out more, there's a link in the description, head on over to Patreon from just five dollars a month.

You can get all that information too, so thank you so much for watching, stay safe and maybe I'll meet you on The Road