Overlander Interview - Pierre & Annie Régior

[dhackney]

Pierre & Annie Régior
Leone, France

Interview location: Torres del Paine National Park, Chile
Interview date: 29 February, 2008

Pierre and Annie are finishing up a ten month trip around Patagonia. They spent one month in Antarctica.


Rig:

Diesel Land Cruiser chassis (I believe it is a 70 series, but I am not qualified to determine LC generation by sight) with camper box.

Length: 5.20 m / 17.06 ft
Width: 1.95 m / 6.4 ft
Height: 2.30 m / 7.5 ft.
Weight: 3,100 k / 6,834 lbs.


Rig comments:

The rig will fit into a container with a little air let out of the rear tires.

The camper box is small, but livable for a trip of this duration.

They had a tent top Land Cruiser and sold it to buy this rig.

They did not consider a tent top or soft side rig viable for Patagonia due to the winds.

The Land Cruiser chassis was imported from Saudi Arabia.

The camper box is made in France.

Camper box manufacturer:
PSI Giraud
39 Rue Lepine
Zi Ecopolis
13500 Martigues, France

Phone: 04 42 43 1078

 

[dhackney]

 

[dhackney]

The web site on the plate frame is the importer of the chassis from Saudi Arabia.

 

[haven]

psi-azalai

Here's the web site of the French company that makes the fiberglass camper
http://www.psi-azalai.com/

The "azalai" model is a frame mounted camper designed for a larger chassis, such as the Defender 110 and 130, and Toyota 79.

The "babouch" model is a slide-in camper the weighs about 1000 lbs, suitable for small pickups.

Chip Haven

 

[flyingwil]

What a cool rig and people to meet! Thanks for sharing the info!

 

[Seeker]

Location

Interview location: Torres del Paine National Park, Chile

That looks a lot like Puerto Natales if you ask me. Brings back awesome (if quite windy) memories of a week-long stroll along the "W" route in the middle of August.

There's just no place like Chile. No place at all.

Doug, these interviews and photos are killing me. You're making my end-goal all too real by showing me how other people are doing it - and I cannot thank you enough for doing so. You're helping me keep the dream alive from half-way around the world and ya don't even know it.

 

[Christian P.]

Doug, these interviews and photos are killing me. You're making my end-goal all too real by showing me how other people are doing it - and I cannot thank you enough for doing so. You're helping me keep the dream alive from half-way around the world and ya don't even know it.

same here

 

[DiploStrat]

Nice Rig

The French seem to be doing some nice stuff in fibreglass. We have the same Toyota pickup. It is a nice beast, but suffers from two weaknesses - the rear springs are WAY too strong and their underslung mounting means that the truck bottoms out very easily.

Mounting a camper on this chassis probably makes for a nicely balanced vehicle without the need for helper springs/air bags, etc.

Edited to add: Seems that they do uprate the springs and add some nice touches, like a second A/C compressor to compress air for the tires, a second fuel filter, etc. http://www.psi-azalai.com/4x4/index.php?2005/03/17/23-toyota-land-cruiser-hors-serie-n26 N.B. If you don't read French, follow some of the other press links - there are articles in English as well.

The owner of the company lived in Burkina Faso for six years and loves overlanding, the same as the owner of Policomposit. It is very interesting to see products designed by people who are actually overlanders themselves.

Get this truck with a manual diesel and split rims and you will probably find parts, tires, and mechanics almost anywhere you go.

 

[Harald Hansen]

L'Azalaï now has a UK distributor, who have a web site in English.