Yes, you heard me right. Engineer Bob James can convert any 4×4 car to a monstrous, capable 6×6 vehicle. In this article, we will write about a day we spent with bob in his 6×6 Nissan Patrol. Nissan patrol is a car that you will definitely come across in the GCC region’s deserts, from the MQ series in the eighties to the current Y61 model. Nowadays, the car contains a 4.8 L VTC engine which is able to produce 276bhp, and 400Nm of torque.
Bob is an Australian Engineer and designer who engineered his own 6×6 Nissan Patrol pick-up. He is currently manufacturing this amazing vehicle right here in UAE, to be more specific he is building it in Al-Dhafrah, Abu Dhabi. And the question is, why did Bob choose Al-Dhafrah to build these vehicles? Bob says, beside the great location of this amazing city right next to the Empty Quarter, I was visiting my friend Sheik Hamad Bin Hamad Al-Nahyan, and we decided to launch the manufacturing of 6×6 vehicles right here in UAE together. Now, we have the vehicles to show and we do expect to see strong demand on it in the local market, and all over the GCC region also.
The whole story started when Bob was serving as a member in the Australian army reserve and he drove all kinds of 4×4 and 6×6 vehicles, add to that the fact that he has been a member of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers since 1982. This is the reason that gave Bob the idea of building his first 6×6 Nissan Patrol pick-up.
Bob describes the first experience by saying; it all seemed very easy at first, and manufacturing the first vehicle took me only a few months, however, I figured out that I will not be able to register the vehicle unless I included the necessary Power Divider so I started building it and right now we are using edition 8 of this divider. The divider is nothing but a simple mechanical brain that can tell automatically when to drive and when to stay released.
A thing to be noted here is that the modifications made to these vehicles are not just cosmetic ones; it also adds tremendous mechanical capabilities to the vehicles. We accompanied Bob as he made a test drive with his 6×6 monster across the desert of UAE and the vehicle sure stands out with its super capabilities, and surprisingly it is also very comfortable on hard terrains.
