Suzuki 4WD Club of Victoria

Hi everyone one

I was just hoping to hear that people have a problem with space in there Suzuki. I am doing my major assessment for 12 on it and would gladly love to hear anyone with problem in the space in the Suzuki or small 4x4. I would also like to no if any of use have a kitchen set (gas stove, sink, water, cooking utensils). I would like to no if it takes up a lot of space in your vehicle. If it does take up a lot of space would you prefer to buy a kitchen set with all the essentials in one kit which takes up less space? Also tell me some of the problems that you are having so I can have a strong area to research.

Thank you so much if you have any pictures of what you have made to overcome this problem I would gladly appreciate it.

If you're after help, you'll need to provide a bit more information I assume you have some ideas for a new space saving product as part of your project?

I've owned a number of 4WD's over the years and it doesn't matter how much space you have, you fill it. I've been camping out of 4WD's for about 16 years. Generally, my opinion is, the more stuff you take the LESS comfortable you are. Why? Because more stuff is more stuff to clean, pack, unpack and deal with when it's wet, windy, snowing etc- stuff takes management, and less stuff means less time managing it all. As a result, when we go camping it doesn't generally look like the camping people with big cars, trailers etc do.

I've tried lots of gas stoves over the years, and they suck. Gas bottles are space inefficient, hazardous, and frustrating - just exactly WHEN is it going to run out? They also don't produce enough heat for outdoors cooking in low temperature, especially if it's windy. In very low temperature, they can freeze up altogether. I've used a Coleman "dual fuel" (Petrol/shellite) stove for some years now and it's 100% the business. Fuel is cheap, safer than compressed gas, they're very compact, and produce masses of heat, from memory, up to twice as much heat as LPG/butane.

Kitchen utensils? A $20 Ikea cutlery set, a cheap kitchen knife, a pair of tongs, and a corkscrew all in a pencil case.

Come up with a sink that's rigid and sturdy but folds flat (say less than 10mm thick) and you're on to a winner. (Maybe plycarbonate or something?) Plastic tubs are very space inefficient. Alternatively, even a straight sided oblong tub that doesn't have any sort of lip would be helpful - if could sit in a food tub and take up little space as it could be filled with bread rolls, bottles of wine, chips - anything that's suspect to crushing or rolling around inside a food tub.

Here's a couple of photos of a camp setup from our snowtrip 2008. This little setup was carried up to the snow in my trayback sierra and a SWB ute, along with plenty of tools, tents, clothes etc. The aluminium trunk contains all our cooking/kitchen equipment and most non-perishable food. I have an esky or Engel fridge for perishables depending on what car I'm driving. The Blue bag was being used as an esky by Michael for this trip - it's hard to justify an esky in the snow. Note the plastic tub though. This is an excellent example where shelter and reliable gear are the #1 priorities.


Here's our cars packed ready to go up the hill. Note that I'm carrying a large esky (unnecessary) lots of recovery gear and tools, and we're both carrying firewood (not normally the case)





As for carrying water - there's not too much can be done about that. Water takes up a pretty fixed volume, and has a pretty fixed weight. I tend to buy 15l plastic jugs of springwater now rather than taking a 20l jerry can - but if you can work out how to make water take up less space I'm all ears

Just some thoughts.

Steve.