Sentimental value

Bitten by the off-road bug but looking for something that offered a little more breathing room, Jeandre Marais from Gqeberha was gifted an old Isuzu KB by his grandfather and has cherished every minute of it.

My off-roading hobby was kickstarted when my parents gave me a Suzuki

Jimny. The Jimny isn’t the biggest vehicle and pretty soon I started to run out of space. Luckily my grandfather Johan Marais offered his Isuzu KB 280 LE single cab to me a year and a half ago. He purchased it brand new in

1997 and had meticulously maintained it in the 22 years he owned it.

In the time that I’ve owned the KB, it’s been through extensive modifications to keep up with my touring expectations. Speaking of which, this bakkie’s taken me all around South Africa’s coastline and along our borders.

The KB’s got a club-cab canopy over the load bed, with dual spare wheels behind it. It’s also got an auxiliary diesel tank and a water tank as well. A fridge/freezer that

slides out on top of a drawer system.

There’s a pair of Hella Pencil Beam driving lamps up front that are supplemented by a quartet of Lightforce items up on the roof rack. The rack also carries diesel Jerry cans, recovery tracks and not one but two awnings. The most recent modification was the off-road bumper up front.

The suspension system’s been made a little more durable thanks to a set of Old Man

Emu shocks and Tough Dog leaf springs, and the KB rides on a set of 15-inch Dunlop

GrandTrek AT3G off-road rubber.

The engine is still stock standard, and from the time it left the showroom floor it’s only covered 180 000 km. It has to be one of the lowest mileage old KBs around. Obviously, my grandfather kept his hand on it, but the Isuzu’s legendary reliability has taken me to and from all corners of our country. My grandfather and I visited the Richtersveld together; he in his Iveco Daily 4x4 and me in the KB. Even in the sand, the KB returned a fuel consumption average of 9 ℓ/100 km.

If I wasn’t constrained by a budget, then I would opt to have a camper shell fitted on the load bed just to make camping a little

more luxurious. But as it stands, I think my KB shows that you can have an overlander that doesn’t have to cost you an arm and a leg. Still, the modifications have set me back close to R100 000 so far.

I wont mess with anything mechanically, because modificaions will negatively affect reliability. I own a few other vehicles and am also building a Prado at the moment to go off-roading in, but I’ll always have a soft spot for the Isuzu.