A few years ago we found a cheap and perfectly suitable substitute in a Cairo hardware shop: a steel grille, welded into steel frame, used as a doormat for public buildings. They are 100x30 cm, about 3-4 kgs, and costs a horrendous $8 each. Probably something similar is available in most hardware stores.
Despite their flimsy looks, they easily support a fully laden -75 Landcruiser. Even in liquid sand, with all four wheels sunk to the axle, with one under each wheel we could recover a cruiser with 1.5 ton load in 5', on the first try. As they are porous, they sink in the sand under the tires (most of the difficulty with the sand sheets when deeply stuck is to get the car up the initial steep gradient) yet still provide the needed support. Since we use them, we never had any recovery that took more than 10 minutes.
An added bonus: they double up as a perfect barbecue mesh  See a photo on Bernhard Lörsch' website: www.gilf-kebir.de
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Happy Travels,
Andras
FJ Expeditions
[This message has been edited by andrasz (edited 29 July 2003).]
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