APEX 4x6

THE LA SPORT MONSTER DUALLY CRUISER

- Stephen Smith

The Sodwana Bay parking lot is always interesting. As I drive in, I pass a Suzuki Jimny (standard), another Jimny (modded, with big tyres), a couple of standard double cabs, a Fortuner or two, a replica Jeep CJ-something, and a Land Cruiser bakkie, fairly unmolested. And I’m driving my own Subaru Outback, probably the most understated (and underrated), and least macho all-wheel-drive vehicle available. (Let’s be honest – it’s a station wagon.) Then I park next to something quite special, and very definitely, incredibly, indelibly and obviously modified. The first hint is the rear axle – it seems that there are four wheels back there. The second hint is that, when I get out of my car, I feel like I’m in an episode of ‘Honey I Shrunk The Car’ – my Outback is dwarfed by the leviathan I find myself next to. Then there are the stickers, the badges and the extra bits bolted on here and there, which all add up to one of the most intimidating 4x4s (is it still a 4x4, if it actually has six wheels?) that I’ve seen on the road: Lionel Lewis’s Dually Land Cruiser double cab. “I did this just to show that I could,” says Lionel. The statement might be a simple one – it’s nothing more than mobile marketing, after all – but the statement that the vehicle makes is nothing of the sort. Later, I’ll see Dodge Rams by US Trucks of Richard’s Bay, a Unimog, and countless Cruisers and Discoveries, but nothing comes close to the presence of the Dually.