I did my 1st trip through Africa in an 800cc Jimny with a buddy (his car- I was just the mechanic ;-)). No Mods, just a roof rack. Very reliable, easy to work on. Days before FI, so was good to be able to manually adjust the timing to suit the low quality/octane fuels. There are always issues with getting spare parts in Africa, so we took the most crucial items with us, nut never needed any of it.
Our fuel consumption was about 1/10 if we stayed under 80km/h (excluding beach riding).
One issue- the wheel base is narrower than that of other cars, so in deep ruts, you struggle as one side runs in the ruts and the other runs on the middle-man
__________________
Squily
|