NAMIBIA'S URI REACHES PARTS OTHER 4X4 DON'T

In an age when most 4x4's seldom venture off-road, receive frequent foam baths and valet spruce-ups and are more often seen in upmarket suburbs than rough terrain, along comes an unpretentious Namibian designed and constructed workhorse. This is a thoroughbred constructed for nothing more than hard work in the toughest African conditions.

With a price tag well within the reach of established and start-up companies alike, the URI 4x4 is blazing a trail like no other in the southern African automobile market.

The Uri is not promoted as a vehicle. "It is a power tool," insists its originator, angora goat farmer Ewert Smith. "The person who buys a URI is not looking for a sensitive, plastic-clad vehicle with leather upholstery and clogged with gadgetry. He wants a vehicle that can do the job."

Translated from the Khoisan language, Uri means 'jump' and well describes the leap of faith required by Smith to design, finance and manufacture the all-terrain-vehicle. Smith raises his flocks of sheep in Koes - a particularly harsh region in northwestern Kahari - and is particularly handy in things mechanical.