4x4 AUGUST 2019 | 67
“Even with shoals of sand getting kicked up from its
tyres, the vehicle never bogged down. All it asked for
was a bit more throttle”
on one tray so I picked up another and Madame
went potty at me. Being laughed at didn’t help her
mood, which in turn made us laugh more and so
the circle continued. Quite happy with that, espe-
cially as she had already brought our food out by
now so she never had the chance to spit in it.
Shortly afterwards, we passed a sign to a place
called Biganus. It really is not going to be possible
to get through this paragraph without coming
over all infantile, is it?
Anyway, our feast of cheap meat was dinner,
and it followed a sandwich stop for lunch at
a cafe just off the autoroute – and both were
taken while sitting outside and soaking up the
sun’s rays. Which is to say that in our mission to
battle our way across the country through rain,
sleet, snow, brimstone and treacle, we failed. We
didn’t just fail a bit, we failed completely. Utterly
and completely. We failed in a save-the-dodo,
Miliband-for-Prime-Minister, get-Swindon-Town-
back-to-the-Premier-League kind of way.
So far, so rubbish. Not that lovely unseasonal
weather is rubbish as such, but as a test for the
Kodiaq’s fortitude it scored zero on a scale of one
to, well, anything. So long as the scale didn’t start
at zero. That’s how pointless the whole exercise
had been up to now, unless you count the fact
that a year on, it proved yet again that this is a
motorway cruiser of the highest order.
Not that we weren’t without a Plan B. Even if it
was actually Plan A, part B. Our target was a part
of Europe where the trails are more like those
you find in sub-7aharan Africa ̄ no mud, eZen
when it’s wet, just lots of sand. Deep sand, too, in
places, with big dug-out tyre marks to demon-
strate the fact that taking it for granted is not
smart. The Kodiaq was going to have to work for
its living after all.
There was another similarity to desert environ-
ments here, too. Which was that while it was hot
during the day, by night it got properly cold. The
Kodiaq’s media screen read just 2.5 degrees one
morning – but a few hours later that had climbed
to 30. We even had to scrape ice off the screen a
couple of times – before coming home later the
same day with sunburn.
Naturally, the Kodiaq was impervious to these
things. How would it respond to ploughing
through deep sand, though? The magic Off-Road
button that trims its electronic control systems
to perform best away from tarmac is capable of
making a difference, but sand is funny stuff. Still, if
you’ve driven on it with mud-terrain tyres you’ll
know that a wide, road-going pattern is by far
preferable – and that’s how it proved.
We started with some faster forest trails
composed of a scruffy, sandy surface on top of
hard, stony ground. The sort of thing you can takewith a bit of panache, but where things can go
badly wrong at a moment’s notice. This is the kind
of terrain that makes up much of the off-roading
people do the in the real world, and it’s actually
not as well suited to traditional off-road vehicles
as it is to newer SUVs like the Kodiaq.
The reason for this is that independent suspen-
sion is far better at responding to small undula-
tions in the surface. Combine this with the lighter
weight of a monocoque SUV and you’ve got
something that handles well and, so long as the
traction is there, shouldn’t be upset by whatever
the ground throws at it.
So far, so good. You can hack it along these
tracks with real confidence the body remains well
controlled as the wheels hammer up and down
across the ground, and there’s rarely any sign
of it going in to a slide. The steering gets a little
light, so you find yourself braking extra early for
corners, but that’s no bad thing – you don’t want
to go getting complacent, after all, and nor do you
want to start thinking you’re on the Dakar Rally.
We’re talking about 20-25mph tracks here, but if
you know your overlanding you’ll know there’s a
big difference between that and the sort of speed
you get down to on serious terrain.
Serious like the deeper sand we encountered
closer to the coast. Now the Kodiaq’s traction
control was having to work for its living, and once