Is the Chinese military’s off-road sport utility vehicle the toughest on the planet?
- PLA’s boxy BJ80 SUV had seven times higher reliability test scores than the Mercedes-Benz that reportedly inspired the Chinese vehicle
- Vehicle’s test results are ‘almost a miracle’, researcher says
The People’s Liberation Army rates its Chinese military BJ80 SUV the “most reliable off-road vehicle in the world” after the boxy four-wheel drive model achieved test scores that were seven times higher than those of the Mercedes-Benz SUV on which it was reportedly modelled, according to an official document seen by the South China Morning Post.
“It is an incredibly high score considering the ordeals it had to go through,” said Song Kai, an associate researcher specialising in automobile structural fatigue at the College of Mechanical and Vehicle Engineering at Hunan University in central China.
“In the military proving ground, a vehicle can age 10 times faster than in a normal environment,” said Song, who was not involved in the BJ80 project. “If the result is correct, the vehicle might have passed the entire reliability test with only two or three failures. For a mass production model, it is almost a miracle.”
China produced more than 29 million motor vehicles last year, equivalent to the number built by the United States, Japan, Germany and India combined, according to the Paris-based trade group Organisation Internationale des Constructeurs d’Automobiles.
The midsize BJ80 made by Beijing Auto Works has been widely perceived as a copy of Mercedes’ G270CDI, a midsize all-wheel-drive military model that is part of the carmaker’s family of G 463 light weight utility vehicles.
The German vehicle, powered by a turbocharged 2.7 litre, five-cylinder diesel engine with a double overhead camshaft, is used by military forces in China, Canada, Australia, the US and other countries. But the Chinese vehicle sells for a fraction of the price of the German car in all markets.