THE PHOENIX THE PHOEN
EDITOR’ S NOTE
Decoding dampers and dirt roads
I was born in Namibia and even after moving to South Africa as a child, we spent many of my school vacations with family north of the Orange River.
earning long-distance dirt road driving was a given for Namibians. Often in rather crude live-axle bakkies and SUVs. The
Lrisks were real, and nearly every Namibian family has a traumatic dirt-road travel story. Either a dramatic tyre failure, hours away from a destination, or even worse: a loss of traction, control and that nightmarish vehicle rollover.
Overlanding and adventure travel have become wildly more popular than the utilitarian Namibian road trips of my childhood. When only a select minority of overlanders would voluntarily gear up and journey into the most remote areas of Namibia for ' fun '.
In the era of social media, deep-reach mobile phone connectivity and GPS coverage, more people than ever are journeying into Southern Africa ' s remote areas, discovering some of the world ' s most cherished wilderness destinations.
Digital technology has enabled these journeys, and modern vehicle cabin design has made it much more comfortable. Anyone who has done a long-distance dirt-road journey in a solid front-axle Hilux double cab, with barely functional air-conditioning and nauseating cabin vibration, knows how good double-cab bakkies and SUVs are.
The vehicles that families and young social media influencers now use to explore the spectacular wilds of Southern Africa are more capable, powerful and comfortable than any of the 4th-gen Hilux bakkies or
60-Series Land Cruisers I travelled in as a child during the 1980s and early 1990s. A current Hilux has more than double the power of the Hilux 2.2 double-cab 4x4s of my youth, which creates a problem.
Modern double-cab bakkies and SUVs are so comfortable and powerful that they create a terrifying illusion of confidence for inexperienced drivers on technically challenging dirt roads. And that ' s when they are empty. Most multi-week adventure journeys into rural South Africa and beyond mean that vehicles are packed to the maximum allowed payload – and often over.
The dynamics of an unloaded vehicle differ dramatically from those of a fully laden vehicle. I often wondered why my Namibian family upgraded suspension components on their bakkies and SUVs as a child. Once I started working in the automotive industry, experienced engineers explained the need for suspension upgrades for severeduty use.
Southern Africa has unrivalled off-road exploration routes. And it ' s not just Namibia. It ' s the Richtersveld. Those extraordinary high altitude passes in the Eastern Cape Malutis. The deep Karoo or red dune Kalahari trails. These are places and spaces that are deeply rewarding to visit, but they do require you to be self-supported. And that often means journeying with a heavily loaded vehicle, which is much more taxing on its suspension.
There ' s nothing worse than sacrificing your valuable vacation leave days, trying to source replacement suspension components that have failed, in the middle of nowhere. Or even worse, losing control because you didn ' t anticipate how much your family ' s double-cab or SUV would be influenced by being fully loaded, travelling on harsh, unfamiliar dirt roads. That ' s why we ' ve taken a deep dive into what 4x4 suspension technology really means for South Africans.
Lance
MARCH 2026 2 WORDS IN ACTION