| THIS WEEK: Wild call Entry
Tempo Trax Judo 4x4
Who's Bad?
Yamaha V-Max
LAST
WEEK:
Tom
and Jerry
Th!nk and Jaguar XK8
Estate
of the Art
Audi RS4 Avant
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The Tempo Trax gets
fit and dons combat gear as it goes mudplugging.
Presenting the Judo 4X4- take cover!
"Quick," said the Chameleon, "pass me the
sugar". The Ant shook his head decidedly, his shiny
black coat glistening in the warm sun. Clearing his
throat, the Rat clicked his teeth together (a bad habit
he had developed when he was younger), and piped in,
"you need to go round the tamarind tree first."
."Oh, and I suppose you get to eat the whole cube,
remarked the Chameleon, turning first red with envy, and
then green with anger. "Hey, you're s'posed to turn
green with envy and red when you are angry, dumbo,"
laughed the Ant.
His laughter faded, and all three turned white the
instant they heard The Rumble. Agitated birds flew up to
the treetops and chirruped a warning to all the others
along the path. It was gaining on them rapidly, all four
cylinders thrumming their arcane turbodiesel roar, the
2399 CC busy with swirling and exploding gases.
Wait a minute. Turbodiesel...in a forest? So that's a 4x4
vehicle, right? A Safari, perhaps? I see it coming...it
looks like a Mercedes G-Wagen...its a Trax...a Tempo Trax
Judo SO! Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the jungle,
where massive 16-inch Michelin tubeless off-road radials
wrestle with gooey mud, where independent differential
locks tackle traction loss and sheer torque muscles a
purposefully-built 2750 kg through.
Grey matter
While we love the looks of the Judo, we are more than
slightly disappointed by the choice of colour for its
paintwork - a depressing grey. Use your imagination, and
the Judo could look great in some of the other colours
Tempo offers it in - Nordic blue or Imperial maroon - not
Mist grey, please. Or how about an Ebony black as an
option?
Just look at the restyled body, with a very aggressively
neat and surprisingly well-finished front end, and you
have visions of the Hummer variety. Back in the concrete
jungle of Mumbai, the vehicle more than once attracted
the attention of passers-by; men, women and children, who
always looked at it with expressions ranging from awe to
downright love. It looks 'right' - tough, uncompromising
and dependable. Gone is any reminder of bad finishing,
shoddy body panels and rusting parts that plagued earlier
iterations.
Inside, the vehicle suggests spartan ruggedness, with a
no-frills interior that nevertheless is a study in
luxury. A contrasting statement, yes, but with the kind
of legroom for nine passengers and cavernous luggage
space, one can accommodate the Chicago Bulls, a competing
basketball team and all their sports gear in one package.
Now that's what one calls luxury. The SO (Special
option?!) version we have also came with see-through
headrests, pretensioned seatbelts for the driver and the
front passenger, and er...nothing else more. No aircon,
not even a blower attachment, and what on Earth is a
music system?. So that's DIY for you!
Controlling the beast
The driver is seated in an all-seeing position, where the
view of the world in front of him is laid out in a neat
panorama of bonnet-defined clearances. Two rather
inadequate external rear-view mirrors have been raided
out of a vanity case parts bin, and offer a bleak and
shuddery view of the road behind. Maybe Tempo has decided
to concentrate on the future and throw away the past, but
hey, we sure could do with more...shall we call it
hindsight? To make matters worse, the rear window of the
Judo has this irritating habit of fogging up from the
inside in cold weather, while also collecting generous
doses of road-splatter outside...so the rear-view mirror
inside too is defunct. Suggestion? A rear window
defogger, and more crucially, a rear window wash/wipe
fitting as standard.
And as for small things like a malfunctioing ignition
lock - the key starts the vehicle, but to turn it off,
one needs to depend on letting out the clutch while in
gear, and windshield wipers that do their job
half-heartedly, a horn cut-out that redefines the concept
of unpredictability - we have the least to say, except
they should be given the golden handshake and replaced
with more compliant and positive controls and fittings.
We are talking about quality perceptions here, and these
are the kind of small things that will make the
difference between a very satisfied driver and a
disgruntled one.
Our SO version did not sport power steering, and as such,
is more than two hands- and shoulders-full to heave
around. No doubt the 16 inch wheels improve ride greatly,
but a stationary Judo is no turning Judo. The vehicle has
to be on the move when the steering wheel is put through
the motions, so we suggest that the person with a weak
constitution would be better off taking the power
steering option. If one is used to a base-version Sumo
however, this vehicle too should pose no problems. With a
turning radius of 6.5 metres, the Judo is not meant for
chasing its own tail, but forgive it this fault, and find
broader areas to backtrack. Yes, this is the turnaround
vehicle for Tempo and while we apologise for the puns, if
the road is too narrow for a turn, there is always the
reverse gear for back-up.
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