This, I am assured, is the ultimate 4WD - capable of rocketing up the steps of Jeff's Shed at a single bound. It's called a Busharanger and is - according to a petrol-headed colleague - superior off-road tackle, whatever that means.
Bushrangers are built by a Sydney automotive wizard called John Davis, and are getting an airing at the Caravan & 4WD Show which continues inside the Melbourne Exhibition Centre until Sunday.
Davis will even discuss building you one one to order - complete with fibre-glass body on Range Rover chassis, and your power unit of choice, within reason.
A basic Bushranger costs $48,000, while the ultimate beast - capable of driving up the side of a small mountain, outrunning a gazelle and frightening the life out of Saddam Hussein - costs $130,000.
Davis has built 20 Bushrangers, but things are looking up: he is about to launch them in the United States.
"I began off-roading as soon as I could drive," he told me yesterday.
"I wanted the very best, but it just didn't exist. So I built one."
Now, everybody wants one. Even Kerry Packer, I hear, is about to trade in his cumbersome Hummer on a nippy Bushranger.
And Davis has even more strings to his bow; he does a roaring trade with "stretch" Range Rovers that he sells as falconing vehicles.
"We enjoy steady sales of those to the Arab Emirates," he said. Falconing is all the go over there, apparently.
Also, he has just sold actor Nicole Kidman two luxurious caravans so that she can set up a suitably opulent camp while hubby Tom Cruise shoots Mission Impossible II, starting next month.
Davis, I suspect named his beast a Bushranger... after himself.
