driving style
Five reasons to love and hate the Nissan Pathfinder III
The name Pathfinder first appeared in the gamut of the Nissan brand in 1985, during the heyday of interest in off-road cars of the “universal” class, combining the permeability and utility of the “professionals” with the comfort of passenger cars. Then the designers of the brand did the same as everyone else: they took the four-wheel drive pickup truck chassis (with independent front suspension and reduction gear in the transmission) and equipped it with a station wagon. Thus was born the SUV with the factory code WD21. In other markets, this car was sold as a Terrano, and the production of this model continued until 1996, when it was replaced by the Pathfinder R50.
In 1993, a separate, purely European branch, named Terrano II, sprang from this trunk, which, nevertheless, soon sprouted in America under the name Ford Maverick (the car whose exterior was designed by Belgian designer Alain Bloné was developed jointly with the concern Ford) but this is a slightly different story. Continue reading
The first SUV of Kazakhstan: the history of the creation of the car LAF 4101
The story began in the very city where, according to the creators of the “Gentlemen of Fortune” motion picture creator, the mother of Vasily Alibabayevich lived with her mother. It was in Dzhambul in 1996 that a private entrepreneur decided to try his hand at creating vehicles of his own design. Now they would say softly that this idea was not simple, but then, at the very peak of the devastation, people’s heads hurt about something else, and the majority didn’t care who did what. However, the owner of the largest maintenance station in the region felt that it was quite realizable.
Of course, at the very beginning of this path no major developments were foreshadowed. It all came down to changing the designs of finished cars. In the first case, the top and doors were removed from the Niva SUV and the body was reinforced. Thus, Alexander Loktev (the same entrepreneur) received a phaeton for his passion for hunting. Continue reading
Five reasons to love and hate Skoda Yeti
Leaving the main design solutions, the engineers were forced to use the larger Volkswagen PQ35 platform, on which models such as the Skoda Octavia, Volkswagen Tiguan and Volkswagen Golf were built at the time. The Fabia and Polo platform originally prepared by the Yeti turned out to be too small.
In the spring of 2009, the crossover premiere was held at the same Geneva Motor Show, sales began in Europe in the summer, and in November of the same year Russian sales of Skoda Yeti were launched. Initially, two of the available range of engines were selected: 1.2 TSI (105 hp, 175 Nm) and 1.8 TSI (160 hp, 250 Nm). With them, a 7-speed robotized box with a double dry clutch DSG7 and a six-speed “mechanics” aggregated. The car was offered both in front-wheel drive version, and with the system of automatically connected all-wheel drive. Continue reading