4WD News July... 2004

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27 July 2004: Australia Leads International Jeep® Wrangler Sales. Officially, Australia is the top market for the iconic Jeep Wrangler outside of North America.

26 July 2004: 2005 Subaru Foresters have dual front side airbags, achieving a five-star crashworthiness rating from the independent Australian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP).

21 July 2004: Mitsubishi Releases Significant Changes to its Outlander SUV. Mitsubishi’s Outlander AWD wagon gets a heart transplant, with 20% more power gained through the introduction of a 2.4 litre SOHC four-cylinder MPI engine with MIVEC (Mitsubishi Innovative Valve lift and timing Electronic Control).

20 July 2004: A specially converted Toyota LandCruiser 79 Series is helping maintain Australia’s largest private railway.

Pilbara Iron (a member of the Rio Tinto Group) uses the LandCruiser to monitor its 636 kilometres of heavy duty standard-gauge railway.

19 July 2004: 150 people & 50 vehicles test the legendary go-anywhere, do-anything capability of their Jeep at Mundaring Power Line Track. The muddy trails of the Mundaring, which is 45 minutes east of Perth, will provide the backdrop for the action packed event.

6 July 2004: Still at Chrysler and Jeep have achieved combined sales of 594 units in June taking year to date sales to 3,617 - a 13 per cent increase on last year's figure. Second quarter sales were up 6 per cent, giving Chrysler Jeep its second consecutive quarter of increased year-over-year sales. The strong result was supported by the continuing popularity of the Jeep Cherokee (sales were up 41 per cent over 2003) and Jeep Wrangler models (up 40.5 per cent). The positive trend is reflected globally. Chrysler Group worldwide sales for June were up 10,290 units over 2003 (an increase of 5 per cent) and the group’s monthly sales have increased for eight of the past nine months

5 July 2004: Nissan's legendary Four Wheel Drive line-up is also on the move – SUV and light commercial vehicle sales during June totalled 4,365 vehicles, the second highest monthly result ever recorded by the company. Star performer was Nissan’s compact SUV entrant, the extreme X-TRAIL, with 1,382 sales during June. The popularity of this versatile vehicle remains very strong, with year-to-date figures showing an 11% increase over the same period last year. Nissan’s sporty Navara 4x4 utility line-up – including the stylish new Series 2 ST-R – continued to re-write the record books with the best monthly result ever of 1,380 vehicles and a year-to-date sales rate an outstanding 28% ahead of the same period last year.

5 July 2004: Still at Subaru, the company today achieved an all-time monthly sales record of 3460 vehicles in June, according to official VFACTS sales figures released today. Among the outstanding performers was Forester, with a monthly record of 1476. Outback also had a record month of 694 units. This means Subaru captured 27.6 per cent of the SUV Compact market in June. At the year's halfway point, Subaru has captured 3.7 per cent of the total vehicle market year-to-date, with a total of 17,537 sales - 2749 ahead of the same period last year.

5 July 2004: The guys from the Subaru Jayco Safari have shown that towing over a range of road conditions is relatively easy, whether its a camper trailer, pop-top or caravan hooked up behind a tow vehicle. Jayco's Bruce Astbury today announced: “We wanted to demonstrate that on most road conditions, providing that common sense is displayed, Jaycos can be towed quite comfortably. Obviously Outbacks have a stronger chassis, and we recommend them for extended Outback trekking." Hear more from Bruce here.

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