Bob Cooke - contributor

It looked like a pleasingly demanding trail – narrow with some steep climbs and sudden drops, and some awkward axle-twisting humps along the way, the sort of track I’d have to take with care bearing in mind that the Cherokee has limited ground clearance and nothing much in the way of underbody protection. Careful positioning of the wheels kept most of the vulnerable bits out of harm’s way as the Jeep eased over the first big bump, which was followed by a sharp rise to the right, steep and sudden enough to have the Jeep’s tow bar scraping the gravel as the nose headed skywards.

Robert Pepper

Human beings need a certain level of stress to perform at their best. If they find a situation too difficult, needing to process too much information too quickly, demanding a level of skill and concentration beyond their abilities then fatigue and distress is the result, leading to underperformance. On the other hand, a very easy task or boring that requires little focus means boredom and complacency, leading to mistakes and again underperformance. The answer is eustress, a stress level enough to keep the human interested, engaged and in the zone of best performance.

Driving on long, straight, bitumen roads in a D3 is for me, boring. The car needs little attention and there’s not much to do. It’s not exciting, and after a few hours I feel tired, in the same way you’d feel tired after doing nothing on an airliner for half a day. But dirt roads are different. These are a constant challenge, not a difficult one, but enough to put me into the eustress zone as there are frequent corners, changing surfaces, different cambers, rocks to avoid and much more. I once drove all day on dirt roads to Australia’s northernmost point with people unused to such conditions, and they couldn’t believe how fresh they felt after spending that amount of time in the car. It was because we were never bored.

Hils Everitt - Editor at Large

Phew...our new long-termer must have the longest ever official product name we’ve ever had. To make life easier I’ll refer to it as the ‘Tiguan’; but that’s not in any way an attempt to undermine its amazing attributes.

Firstly, we have VW’s latest BlueMotion technology, which basically means that our new feisty tiger SUV incorporates a multifunction computer which gives you gear change recommendations on the screen in order to improve fuel consumption as well as Stop/Start and battery regeneration systems. The battery regeneration system is designed to help use energy that would otherwise be lost during braking. So when you’re slowing down or braking, the alternator’s voltage is boosted and used for bulk battery recharging.

Robert Pepper

Six recoveries this month, each of which has their own little story. No sooner I had finished enjoying the nostalgic delights of a Series 1 then it was into the most talked about car of the year, the Evoque, on a mission to see just how good it really is in the rough stuff. I have the answer, which will be featured in this magazine shortly, but I also managed to get our standby recovery Navara stuck because I didn’t check a mound that can usually be driven right over, and which had changed a bit since the last visit to the area. The Nissan’s lack of clearance didn’t help, but I’ll put my hand up for driver error there even if the recovery didn’t take long. Of course, I say this because as we finished the Evoque shoot and prepared to depart, the radio crackled into life and it was my assistant who had managed to get the Nissan properly stuck in a different location, well and truly high centred with all four wheels dangling in the air!