APPROACH ANGLE
While you have already received 4WDrive’s first issue of the year, this is the first issue we will put together in 2017, so a Happy New Year to you all!
We came screaming out of 2016 on the cusp of an explosive shockwave with our backs on fire. It seems like we were lucky just to get our footing as 2017 rang in. 2016 was an amazing year of big news, big changes and coming uncertainty, both in the real world and in our own sheltered 4WD world.
Big launches of extreme new 4x4’s ready to tackle anything the earth can throw at them, massive scandals that threaten to bring down some of the biggest automotive makers and the uncertainty of future foreign importation rules made headlines in the automotive world. In the real world, the nightly news has been dominated by wars, a crazy US election that has struck fear into many, and hope into others, and geopolitical positioning that reeks of a coming shift in the global powers. Highly popular celebrities had fallen at an incredible rate and by the end of December; the year was dubbed “officially the worst year in the history of the universe” on social media.
Well, 2016 did have its bad points, but it also had some really good points that were not as sensationalised in the media.
Penny Oleksiak, only 16 years old, brought home four medals from the Rio Olympics, the Cubs finally won the World Series after a 108-year curse, the giant panda is no longer on the endangered list, the hole in the ozone layer has been found to be shrinking, an electric plane (Solar Impulse) completed a roundthe-world flight, and scientists are closer than ever before to curing ALS, HIV and cancer thanks to challenge funding like the Ice Bucket Challenge. So, with a positive attitude and the determination to reach for your dreams, now is the time to set some goals for 2017. As much as I wish for world peace, a cure for cancer and for Chuck Norris to roundhouse Trump and become the President of the United States, my goals for 2017 are much more four-wheel-drive oriented. In essence, I’m planning our next Epic Adventure, and it’s coming up real soon.
As you can tell by the photo, we have nabbed ourselves a Nissan… or two… and we are going to put some long and brutal kilometres on them. In our last Epic Adventure we attempted to drive from the Canadian border to the Mexican border completely off-road. Well, our next adventure is equally ambitious, however we’re planning on going in a different direction, and that’s all I can say at this time.
Be sure to tune in next issue, as we will let you in on our destination, our steed and what we need to build to get us there. Happy 2017 all.