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The Mud Life 4×4 Magazine Issue 41 August 2022

The Mud Life 4x4 Magazine Cover Graphic

Yay, it’s the school holidays, which also means that I’m off for six weeks from the job that actually pays the bills (school counsellor). What shall I do?

The Mud Life 4×4 Magazine Issue 41 August 2022

SsangYong are the longest-running Korean vehicle brand, manufacturing vehicles since
1954

Publication Information
Cover Price: Free
Format: Digital, 101 pages
Frequency: Monthly
Subject: 4×4, Off-Roading, Green-Laning
Publisher: The Mud Life
News, Reviews & Adventure

The Mud Life 4×4 Magazine Issue 41 August 2022

Turner’s Torque

Summertime, and the living is easy  

Yay, it’s the school holidays, which also means that I’m off for six weeks from the job that actually pays the bills (school counsellor). What shall I do?

Well, on the press car front, during the first week I have a £100k V8 Defender to play with, which is nice. Fortunately, with the exception of BMW, all press cars come with a full tank of fuel, and what’s even better is that I don’t have to replenish them when they’re returned.

That said, I fear I’ll need to top-up the V8 Defender’s fuel tank a few times during our week together as I have a 280 mile round trip down to Lincolnshire, more specifically Grimsthorpe Castle for the wonderfully entertaining Hagerty Festival of the Unexceptional. Then the following day I’m up to Thirsk in North Yorkshire to visit Twisted Automotive – that’s another 200 miles for the V8. Of course, that doesn’t count any ‘off-road’ detours!

The day the V8 is returned to JLR I get a 5-door Jeep Wrangler Rubicon delivered, with a Tentbox rooftop tent. The Rubicon is always an entertaining 4×4 to drive, and I have a few overnight wild camping trips planned.

The week after the Jeep comes the new Isuzu D-Max AT35. At the same time two other motoring colleagues have a V-Cross and standard D-Max, so we’re planning a couple of days out in the Lakes and Yorkshire enjoying some of the more difficult green lanes. I dare say that Ben and Annabelle from Planet Auto will be videoing the whole exploit for their YouTube channel.

The week after that I have the LWB Ford Nugget camper. We had the short wheel base last year, but it arrived with dead leisure batteries, and although we enjoyed a few days out in it, overnighters were a bit dark and cold!

After the Nugget, and before I eventually get my hands on a new Range Rover, I have a week free from press cars, this will mean I can go out and enjoy driving Deux Smurf again, our 1996 Toyota Surf. I have to admit, since she was broken into a couple of months ago I’ve fallen out with her a bit. Not her fault, obviously, it’s me, I’ve been distant. I’m hoping that exploring quite a few green lanes in her, as well as visiting some off-grid camp sites will mend the bond that’s been temporarily broken. Let’s hope September doesn’t come too soon!

Damian, Editor-in-Chief

The Mud Life is all about 4x4s, and enjoying the great British outdoors.

Damian and Karen Lee Turner (A.K.A. The Muddy Madam)
What’s in this Issue

TURNER’S TORQUE 4

MUDDY MADAM’S MOMENT 6-7

NEWS 8-10

DACIA JOGGER COMFORT 12-20

LANING LIFE 22-27

OUR GARAGE 29-30

ŠKODA KODIAQ SPORTLINE 32-42

FLASH DRIVE – Maxda CX30 44-45

STRESS FREE PACKING 47-50

GOODS & GEAR 52-57

TASTY TREATS 58-61

CAMPING LIFE 62-64

MOOCH – Houndkirk Moor 65-70

SSANGYONG MUSSO SARACEN 72-82

BE OUR GUEST 84-87

THE TALES OF LILLY 88-89

WOOF STUFF 90

READER’S RIDES 92-95

DIRECTORIES 97-99

BACK ISSUES 100-101

Muddy Madam’s Moment

Hippy HippyAche!

Fat bottomed girls you make the rockin’ world go round

At the end of May I had the chance to see Queen and have Adam Lambert sing this to me live in Manchester, and it was brilliant. OK maybe Adam didn’t sing it directly to me, but as a fat bottomed girl I claimed the moment, though I am beginning to think that car designers don’t believe these lyrics.

I think they believe everyone has a narrow, emaciated, waif-style arse, and design accordingly. This is not surprising as statistics gathered in the US showed that only 19.8% of automotive designers are women, proving most car interiors are designed by people who have narrow hips and normally do not have a lot of ‘junk in the trunk’.

Designers are so used to thinking of men as the default, and women as a sort of niche. It has been proved over and over again that men design for men, and don’t seem to, (or don’t want to) understand how women’s bodies are different, and how those differences need to be addressed in product design.

Some of the more famous examples are: police stab vests that don’t account for breasts, safety goggles that are too large for the female face, work boots that don’t fit women’s feet and my favourite, that time when NASA had to cancel the first allwomen space walk, to much public outcry, because they only had one properly configured medium spacesuit on the International Space Station, and they needed two. What was more telling is that they actually only have M, L & XL suits on the station, so if you are a smaller woman in space you are stuffed.

So what has this to do with cars?

Over the past four weeks we have had four different cars delivered to test for a week at a time, and for three out of the four I couldn’t drive them without the seat belts digging in to my hips.

Now before you think “fat b*tch, just lose weight”, I will tell you that, although I am overweight, I am in proportion, and my backside does not protroud beyond the width of the seat, so why am I having such issues?

Well in the belief that more space is wanted for the ever-increasing size of the centre cubby and console, some designers have decided that instead of cutting out the shape for the seat belt mechanism from the console they will just cut the shape out of the seat space!

We had two Hondas, the CRV & HRV, both in which the designers had decided that this was the way to go. Not only did they cut out the seat, but the socket bit actually protrudes into the seat space even more!

It made for a rather uncomfortable drive, but I realised that if I just dropped the seat down to it’s lowest point I could get the seat belt to sit slightly above my hip. Not the ideal driving position, but at least I wasn’t in pain, which couldn’t be said for the third car, the SsangYong Korando.

You will find out what Damian thought of all the cars over the next month or two, but unfortunately they only thing I can tell you about the Korando is this….

I drove it for 3 minutes, in two 1½ minute stints nipping up to the shops, and in that miniscule time I got a f***ing painful bruise on my hip, due to SsangYong’s designer jamming the seat belt holder between the console and the seat, and then using a triangular ‘torture device’ of a seat belt catch to stick out right into where you sit.

It was as bad on the passenger seat side too, so for a whole week I refused to set foot back in that car – it was that painful!

I will end this mini-rant with a plee to the designers of this world – please think about other people who don’t have the same dimensions as you. You figured it out (eventually) when it comes to sliding seat tracks, allowing the steering wheels to be moved up, down, forwards and back, and when you put the adjustable height seatbelts in, but strangely you have yet to figure out that women are built with wider hips. Could this be because this issue doesn’t affect you?

I beg you to look at, and talk to, your wives, sisters, mums and female friends, and hopefully realise we have curvier bodies, and stop sticking things in a car that stick out in uncomfortable places. Honestly, they will all thank you for it!

Copyright Informatio
Important information

Whilst every effort is made to ensure that the contents of The Mud Life magazine are accurate, we accept no responsibility for errors or omissions, nor the consequence of actions made as a result of these. When responding to any advertisements in The Mud Life magazine, you should make appropriate enquiries before sending money or entering into a contract. The publishers and owners take reasonable care to ensure advertiser’s probity, but will not be liable for any losses incurred as a result of responding to adverts.

Copyright

All images and material on these pages are protected by copyright © Damian Turner. All rights reserved. None of the images or material within this magazine may be reproduced, duplicated, copied, sold, resold or otherwise exploited for any commercial purpose that is not expressly authorised by Damian Turner or Karen Lee Turner.

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