Brave Warrior!

[nikkortorokkor]

Confession - this was made with a digital camera. If it is in the wrong place, I hope that the moderators will feel free to move it:



This is the eight seater troop carrier version of the BAW BJ2022 Brave Warrior Light Utility Vehicle.

I think that it is designated the BJ2022JLC 3/4 Ton, but exact name of each variation can be difficult to decide!

If you look these up on the net, you'll sometimes find them called Chinese hummers, and a lot of racial epithets besides. But this is no more a hummer copy than it is a Land Rover copy, and given BAW (Beijing Benz, and the subsidiary which makes these is the old Beijing Jeep Corp) not only made the BJ212/2020 based on the USSR UAZ, & used for 35 years as the PLA workhorse, but also built Jeep Cherokees from 1985 on, this is built from experience rather than facsimile.

If the BJ2022 takes the same beating as the old 2020 did, it'll do all right!

This is a 212/2020 in the hands of the (then) rebel forces in Libya:



I was quite pleased with my photo of the Brave Warrior, which was of the lead vehicle in a PLA Coastguard column. I wasn't going to hang around taking lots of photos - doing so can result in uncomfortable questions and long nights in the cells! One snapshot & I had the camera back down by my waist.

[daveh]

Wasn't it a bit risky even taking one photo? ;D

[Deleted]

When we were in China in 2008 I was usually pretty careful about photo involving the military. You were't supposed to take photos in the airport but we arrived a 5 in the morning and several people shot pictures so I did, too, and the security people just looked bored. At Tiananmen Square I shot pictures of guards drilling (figured they wouldn't be doing it out in such an open place if they didn't want to be photographed).

There were a lot of military vehicles on the roads driven mostly by soldiers who looked like they were 16 years old wearing uniforms five sizes too large.

The only time I got a reaction concerning the military was when we were touring the Ming Tombs, north of Beijing. The guide was giving a lecture. I could hear, off in the distance, on the far side of the valley we were in, the sound of artillery. When the guide finished talking I ask if there was a military base near. I asked why I would think that. I said because I could hear artillery fire. That made the guide visibly nervous--he changed the subject and I got the impression I probably better leave that topic alone.

That's a nice looking rig although from the size It looks like it might be more in the 1/2 ton range.

W.

[Deleted]

Another picture involving authority figures. I took this on the Shanghai Bund --a promenade along the river that separates the old and new sections of the city, The young woman at the top of the steps was a peddler (we called them "mosquitoes"), trying to sell stuff to the tourists. That apparently wasn't allowed on the Bund and a female security guard with quite an attitude started yelling at the peddler to leave. I don't speak Chinese but from the reaction of the man on the left side of the photo, I think the peddler was telling the guard to do something to herself that is physically impossible.

[nikkortorokkor]

Wayne, unfortunately, I can't see your photo, but I get the scenario. It would've been a security guard - underpaid and full of attitude. If it were the real rozzers, the old street vendor would be long gone. They do a pretty good disappearing act if there is the whiff of a fine or worse.

The SWB Warrior is indeed a half ton, while, the LWB 8 seater troopie shown above is listed at 3/4 ton. I took the pic on long zoom (300 equiv) which foreshortens the vehicle, but the three side windows and high, troopie style roof give it away as an LWB.

BTW, Warriors are powered by a 136 horse Mitsubishi 3 litre turbo diesel which, I'd guess, has been lifted straight out of the old LWB Pajero, of which you used to see dozens in any Chinese city every day.

Like the old 2020, however, the Paj is fast disappearing, as middle-class Chinese line up to buy soft roaders from Beemer & Merc & even Porsche. My employers sent a Buick luxury mini-van to pick us up from the airport. 10 years ago it would've been an 80s-shape VW Sororro.

I know what you mean about boys in oversize uniforms. This column was the same. The scariest guys are the security guards who accompany all cash deliveries. They wear urban camo, lots of kevlar, and carry pump action street howitzers. They take their job very seriously and I studiously avoid eye contact when I see them on the job. The way they move and stand is pure Hollywood and is intimidating enough to quash the thought of doing a bank job!

[nikonbob]

Great looking vehicle. I wouldn't mind one for the bush here if it had a good heater.

Bob

[nikkortorokkor]

Bob, this is definitely a case of beauty being in the eye of the beholder, but I also agree. I'm sure others think it has all the style of a biscuit tin!

I have yet to see a civvie version in the flesh, but BAW did show them at the 2008 Beijing Auto Show.

Here is a 5 seater 1/2 Ton:






The interior is basic, but much less so than the old 2020, which was as spartan as a Willys Jeep. A heater is in evidence. This interior is almost identical to the military version.

Others have suggested that this would find a small market in Nth America and elsewhere among those 'Grizzly Adams' types who want basic, maintainable bush transport.

[nikonbob]

"Others have suggested that this would find a small market in Nth America and elsewhere among those 'Grizzly Adams' types who want basic, maintainable bush transport."

That is exactly it. Not that I am one of those types but basic and maintainable for bush bashing is good. As for style, it looks like what it is and not some windup soccer mom going to the mall toy.

Bob