An off-road vehicle, sometimes referred to as an overland or adventure vehicle, is considered to be any type of vehicle which is capable of driving on and off

paved Pavement may refer to: * Pavement (architecture), an outdoor floor or superficial surface covering * Road surface, the durable surfacing of roads and walkways ** Asphalt concrete, a common form of road surface * Sidewalk or pavement, a walkway alo ...

gravel Gravel is a loose aggregation of rock fragments. Gravel occurs naturally throughout the world as a result of sedimentary and erosive geologic processes; it is also produced in large quantities commercially as crushed stone. Gravel is classifi ...

surface. It is generally characterized by having large tires with deep, open treads, a flexible suspension, or even caterpillar tracks. Other vehicles that do not travel on public streets or highways are generally termed off-highway vehicles, including tractors,

forklift A forklift (also called lift truck, jitney, hi-lo, fork truck, fork hoist, and forklift truck) is a powered industrial truck used to lift and move materials over short distances. The forklift was developed in the early 20th century by various c ...

s, cranes,

backhoe A backhoe—also called rear actor or back actor—is a type of excavating equipment, or digger, consisting of a digging bucket on the end of a two-part articulated arm. It is typically mounted on the back of a tractor or front loader, the latt ...

bulldozer A bulldozer or dozer (also called a crawler) is a large, motorized machine equipped with a metal blade to the front for pushing material: soil, sand, snow, rubble, or rock during construction work. It travels most commonly on continuous track ...

s, and golf carts. Off-road vehicles have an enthusiastic following because of their versatility. Several types of

motorsport Motorsport, motorsports or motor sport is a global term used to encompass the group of competitive sporting events which primarily involve the use of motorized vehicles. The terminology can also be used to describe forms of competition of two ...

s involve racing off-road vehicles. The most common use of these vehicles is for

sightseeing Tourism is travel for pleasure or business; also the theory and practice of touring, the business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tours. The World Tourism Organization defines tourism mor ...

in areas distant from the pavement. The use of higher clearance and higher traction vehicles enables access on trails and forest roads that have rough and low traction surfaces. Off-road vehicles can typically ford through deeper waters (i.e., rivers or floodwaters) than on-road vehicles can.

History

One of the first modified off-road vehicles was the Kégresse track, a conversion undertaken first by

Adolphe Kégresse Adolphe Kégresse (1879, Héricourt, Haute-Saône - 1943) was a French military engineer who invented the half-track and dual clutch transmission. Born at Héricourt, and educated in Montbéliard, he moved in 1905 to Saint Petersburg, Russia to ...

, who designed the original while working for

Czar Tsar ( or ), also spelled ''czar'', ''tzar'', or ''csar'', is a title used by East and South Slavic monarchs. The term is derived from the Latin word ''caesar'', which was intended to mean "emperor" in the European medieval sense of the ter ...

Nicholas II of Russia between 1906 and 1916. The system uses a

caterpillar track Continuous track is a system of vehicle propulsion used in tracked vehicles, running on a continuous band of treads or track plates driven by two or more wheels. The large surface area of the tracks distributes the weight of the vehicle b ...

with a flexible belt rather than interlocking metal segments. It can be fitted to a conventional car or truck to turn it into a half-track suitable for use over rough or soft ground. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Kégresse returned to his native France where the system was used on

Citroën Citroën () is a French automobile brand. The "Automobiles Citroën" manufacturing company was founded in March 1919 by André Citroën. Citroën is owned by Stellantis since 2021 and previously was part of the PSA Group after Peugeot acquired ...

cars between 1921 and 1937 for off-road and

military vehicle A military vehicle is any vehicle for land-based military transport and activity, including combat vehicles; both specifically designed for, or significantly used by military and armed forces. Most military vehicles require off-road capabiliti ...

s. The

company sponsored several overland expeditions with their vehicles crossing North Africa and Central Asia. A huge wheeled vehicle designed from

1937 Events January * January 1 – Anastasio Somoza García becomes President of Nicaragua. * January 5 – Water levels begin to rise in the Ohio River in the United States, leading to the Ohio River flood of 1937, which continues into Fe ...

1939 This year also marks the start of the Second World War, the largest and deadliest conflict in human history. Events Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix. January * January 1 ** Third Reich *** Jews are forbidden to ...

under the direction of

Thomas Poulter Thomas Charles Poulter (March 3, 1897 – June 4, 1978) was an American scientist and antarctic explorer who worked at the Armour Institute of Technology and SRI International, where he was an associate director. Early career Poulter taught p ...

called

Antarctic Snow Cruiser The Antarctic Snow Cruiser was a vehicle designed from 1937 to 1939 under the direction of Thomas Poulter, intended to facilitate transport in Antarctica during the United States Antarctic Service Expedition (1939–41). The Snow Cruiser was a ...

was intended to facilitate transport in the Antarctica. While having several innovative features, it generally failed to operate as hoped under the difficult conditions, and was eventually abandoned in Antarctica. After World War II, a huge surplus of light off-road vehicles like the

Jeep Jeep is an American automobile marque, now owned by multi-national corporation Stellantis. Jeep has been part of Chrysler since 1987, when Chrysler acquired the Jeep brand, along with remaining assets, from its previous owner American Moto ...

and heavier lorries were available on the automobile market. The

Jeeps Jeep is an American automobile marque, now owned by multi-national corporation Stellantis. Jeep has been part of Chrysler since 1987, when Chrysler acquired the Jeep brand, along with remaining assets, from its previous owner American Moto ...

in particular were popular with buyers who used them as utility vehicles. This was also the start of off-roading as a hobby. The wartime

soon wore out, though, and the Jeep company started to produce civilian derivatives, closely followed by similar vehicles from British Land Rover and

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

ese Toyota, Datsun/

Nissan , trade name, trading as Nissan Motor Corporation and often shortened to Nissan, is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automobile manufacturer headquartered in Nishi-ku, Yokohama, Japan. The company sells ...

Suzuki is a Japan, Japanese multinational corporation headquartered in Minami-ku, Hamamatsu, Japan. Suzuki manufactures automobiles, motorcycles, All-terrain vehicle, all-terrain vehicles (ATVs), outboard motor, outboard marine engines, wheelchairs ...

, and

Mitsubishi The is a group of autonomous Japanese multinational companies in a variety of industries. Founded by Yatarō Iwasaki in 1870, the Mitsubishi Group historically descended from the Mitsubishi zaibatsu, a unified company which existed from 1870 ...

. These were all alike: small, compact, four-wheel-drive vehicles with at most a small hardtop to protect the occupants from the elements. From the 1960s and onward, more comfortable vehicles were produced. For several years, they were popular with rural buyers due to their off-road and load-lugging capabilities. The U.S. Jeep Wagoneer and the Ford Bronco, the British Range Rover, and the

station wagon A station wagon ( US, also wagon) or estate car ( UK, also estate), is an automotive body-style variant of a sedan/saloon with its roof extended rearward over a shared passenger/cargo volume with access at the back via a third or fifth door ( ...

-bodied Japanese Toyota Land Cruiser, Nissan Patrol, and Suzuki Lj's series were all essentially just

bodies on light truck frames with

four-wheel-drive Four-wheel drive, also called 4×4 ("four by four") or 4WD, refers to a two-axled vehicle drivetrain capable of providing torque to all of its wheels simultaneously. It may be full-time or on-demand, and is typically linked via a transfer case ...

drivetrains. Later, during the

1990s File:1990s decade montage.png, From top left, clockwise: The Hubble Space Telescope orbits the Earth after it was launched in 1990; American F-16s and F-15s fly over burning oil fields in Operation Desert Storm, also known as the 1991 Gulf War ...

, manufacturers started to add even more luxuries to bring those off-road vehicles on par with regular cars. This eventually evolved into what we call the SUV today. It also evolved into the newer

crossover vehicle A crossover, crossover SUV, or crossover utility vehicle (CUV) is a type of automobile with an increased ride height that is built on unibody chassis construction shared with passenger cars, as opposed to traditional sport utility vehicles ( ...

, where utility and off-road capability was sacrificed for better on-road handling and luxury.

Technical

To be able to drive off the pavement, off-road vehicles need several characteristics: They need to have a low

ground pressure Ground pressure is the pressure exerted on the ground by the tires or tracks of a motorized vehicle, and is one measure of its potential mobility, especially over soft ground. It also applies to the feet of a walking person or machine. Ground pre ...

, so as not to sink into soft ground, they need ground clearance to not get hung up on obstacles, and they need to keep their wheels or

track Track or Tracks may refer to: Routes or imprints * Ancient trackway, any track or trail whose origin is lost in antiquity * Animal track, imprints left on surfaces that an animal walks across * Desire path, a line worn by people taking the shorte ...

s on the ground so as not to lose traction. Wheeled vehicles accomplish this by having a suitable balance of large or additional tires combined with tall and flexible suspension. Tracked vehicles accomplish this by having wide tracks and a flexible suspension on the road wheels. ГТ-СМ at Vankorskoe oilfield

The choice of wheels versus tracks is one of cost and suitability. A tracked drivetrain is more expensive to produce and maintain. Wheeled drivetrains are cheaper and give a higher top speed. The tracked drivetrain has greater off-road capability. Tires play a significant role for any off-road vehicle equipped with wheels, as they ensure optimal traction required to keep it moving. The

off-road tire Off-road tires (Off-road tyre) are a category of vehicle tires that use deep tread to provide more traction on unpaved surfaces such as loose dirt, mud, sand, or gravel. Compared to ice or snow tires, they lack studs but contain deeper and wider ...

tread types vary depending on the terrain type. The most common types of off-road tires are A/T (stands for "All Terrain") and M/T (stands for "Mud Terrain"). While the A/T tires perform excellently on the sand, they are barely usable in the mud. There are also unique Sand Blaster and Mud bogging tires used for the most challenging terrains such as dirt, sand and even water to maintain traction at extreme angles and high speeds (off-road

). Most off-road vehicles are fitted with especially low gearing. This allows the operator to make the most of the engine's available power while moving slowly through challenging terrain. An internal combustion engine coupled to a standard gearbox often has an output speed too high. The vehicle often has one of two things, either a very low ("granny") first gear (like the all-wheel drive Volkswagen Transporter versions) or an additional gearbox in line with the first, called a reduction drive. Some vehicles, like the Bv206 in the picture on the right, also have torque converters to further reduce the gearing. Many wheeled off-road vehicles provide power to all wheels to keep traction on slippery surfaces. For a typical four-wheel vehicle this is known as four-wheel drive. Vehicles designed for use both on and off-road may be designed to be switched between two-wheel drive and four-wheel drive so that the vehicle uses fewer driven wheels when driven on the road.

Criticism of off-road vehicles

Safety

SUVs are built with higher ground clearance for

off-road Off-roading is the activity of driving or riding in a vehicle on unpaved surfaces such as sand, gravel, riverbeds, mud, snow, rocks, and other natural terrain. Types of off-roading range in intensity, from leisure drives with unmodified vehicl ...

use and thus have a higher centre of gravity, therefore increasing the risk of rollover. When an SUV turns, the vehicle's mass resists the turn and carries the weight forward, thus allowing the traction from the tires to create a lateral

centripetal force A centripetal force (from Latin ''centrum'', "center" and ''petere'', "to seek") is a force that makes a body follow a curved path. Its direction is always orthogonal to the motion of the body and towards the fixed point of the instantaneous c ...

as the vehicle continues through the turn. The conflict between the top weight of the SUV's desire to go straight while the friction of the tires on the road cause the bottom of the vehicle to move away and out from under the vehicle during a turn. SUVs are more likely to be in rollover accidents than passenger cars. According to a study conducted in the United States, SUVs have twice the fatality rate of cars and have nearly triple the fatality rate in rollover accidents. Of vehicles in the United States, light trucks (including SUVs) represent 36 percent of all registered vehicles. They are involved in about half of the fatal two-vehicle crashes with passenger cars, and 80 percent of these fatalities are to occupants of the passenger cars.

Environment

In the United States, the number of ORV users since 1972 has climbed sevenfold—from five million to 36 million in 2000. Government policies that protect wilderness but also allow recreational ORV use have been the subject of some debate within the United States and other countries. All trail and off-trail activities impact natural vegetation and wildlife, which can lead to erosion,

invasive species An invasive species otherwise known as an alien is an introduced organism that becomes overpopulated and harms its new environment. Although most introduced species are neutral or beneficial with respect to other species, invasive species ad ...

, habitat loss, and ultimately

species loss Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

decreasing an ecosystem's ability to maintain homeostasis. ORV's cause greater stress to the environment than

foot traffic A pedestrian is a person traveling on foot, whether walking or running. In modern times, the term usually refers to someone walking on a road or pavement, but this was not the case historically. The meaning of pedestrian is displayed with t ...

alone, and ORV operators who attempt to test their vehicles against natural obstacles can do significantly more damage than those who follow legal trails. Illegal use of off-road vehicles has been identified as a serious land management problem ranked with dumping

garbage Garbage, trash, rubbish, or refuse is waste material that is discarded by humans, usually due to a perceived lack of utility. The term generally does not encompass bodily waste products, purely liquid or gaseous wastes, or toxic waste produc ...

and other forms of vandalism. Many user organizations, such as

Tread Lightly! Tread Lightly! is a nonprofit organization based in Centerville, Utah, whose mission is to promote responsible recreation through stewardship, education and communication. It was started as a campaign to address impacts from off road vehicles b ...

and the

Sierra Club The Sierra Club is an environmental organization with chapters in all 50 United States, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico. The club was founded on May 28, 1892, in San Francisco, California, by Scottish-American preservationist John Muir, who be ...

, publish and encourage appropriate

trail ethics Trail ethics define appropriate ranges of behavior for hikers on a public trail. It is similar to both environmental ethics and human rights in that it deals with the shared interaction of humans and nature. There are multiple agencies and group ...

. ORVs have also been criticized for producing more pollution in areas that might normally have none. In addition to noise pollution that can cause hearing impairment and stress in wildlife, according to the

U.S. Forest Service The United States Forest Service (USFS) is an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that administers the nation's 154 national forests and 20 national grasslands. The Forest Service manages of land. Major divisions of the agency in ...

, old-style two-stroke engines (no longer a component of new off-road vehicles, although some are still in use) "emit about 20 to 33 percent of the consumed fuel through the exhaust" and "discharge from two-stroke snowmobile engines can lead to indirect pollutant deposition into the top layer of snow and subsequently into the associated surface and ground water." In 2002, the United States Environmental Protection Agency adopted emissions standards for all-terrain vehicles that "when fully implemented in 2012... are expected to prevent the release of more than two million tons of air pollution each year—the equivalent of removing the pollution from more than 32 million cars every year." File:Motorcycle-Forest-Damage.jpg, Negative environmental effects caused by motorcycles to a portion of the Los Padres National Forest File:Orv-damage.jpg, Negative environmental effects that occurred when off-road vehicle drivers left the posted trail in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park

Common off-road vehicles

Common commercial off-road vehicles include four-wheel-drive

pickup truck A pickup truck or pickup is a light-duty truck that has an enclosed cabin, and a back end made up of a cargo bed that is enclosed by three low walls with no roof (this cargo bed back end sometimes consists of a tailgate and removable covering) ...

s like the Ford F-Series,

Chevrolet C/K C/K is a series of trucks that was manufactured by General Motors from the 1960 to 2002 model years. Marketed by both the Chevrolet and GMC divisions, the C/K series encompassed a wide range of vehicles. While most commonly associated with picku ...

, Dodge Ram, and

Toyota Tacoma The Toyota Tacoma is a pickup truck manufactured by the Japanese automobile manufacturer Toyota since 1995. The first-generation Tacoma (model years 1995 through 2004) was classified as a compact pickup. The second generation (model years 2005 t ...

. A number of military vehicles have also seen civilian use, including the

Jeep CJ The Jeep CJ models are a series and a range of small, open-bodied off-road vehicles and compact pickup trucks, built and sold by several successive incarnations of the Jeep automobile marque from 1945 to 1986. The 1945 Willys Jeep was the world' ...

and the AM General Hummer. Some, like the early Land Rovers, were adapted to military use from civilian specifications. Specialized commonly available off-road vehicles include Utility terrain vehicles (UTVs), All-terrain vehicles (ATVs),

dirt bike The six main types of motorcycles are generally recognized as ''standard'', ''cruiser'', ''touring'', ''sports'', ''off-road'', and ''dual-purpose''. ''Sport touring'' is sometimes recognized as a seventh category or integrated with the ''touring' ...

s, dune buggies, rock crawlers, and sandrails. File:Offroad Jeep 05760 2.jpg,

in action File:Offroadvehicle.JPG, Heavily modified Chevrolet Blazer typical of the United States hobbyist off-roading scene File:Sandrail.JPG, Sandrail at Silver Lake Sand Dunes File:Superjeep,_Reykjavik,_Iceland.jpg, A "Super Jeep", Reykjavik, Iceland

All-terrain vehicle

Off-road motorcycle

There are various types of off-road motorcycles, also known as dirt bikes, specially designed for off-road events. Compared to road-going motorcycles, off-road machines are simpler and lighter, having long

suspension travel Suspension is the system of tires, tire air, springs, shock absorbers and linkages that connects a vehicle to its wheels and allows relative motion between the two. Suspension systems must support both road holding/ handling and ride q ...

, high ground clearance, and rugged construction with little bodywork and no fairings for less damage in spills. Wheels (usually 21" front, 18" rear) have knobby tires, often clamped to the rim with a rim lock.

Commercial, military and less common off-road vehicles

European militaries and utilities have used Land Rover Defenders, Haflingers, Pinzgauers, Volvo L3314, and Mercedes-Benz Unimogs for all-terrain transportation. The Portuguese

UMM Alter Umm () means ''mother'' in Arabic. It is a common Arabic feminine given name and generic prefix for Semitic place names. It may refer to: Places Bahrain *Ain Umm Sujoor, an archaeological site *Umm an Nasan, an island *Umm as Sabaan, an islet Egy ...

is less common. The military market for off-road vehicles used to be large, but, since

the fall of the Iron Curtain The Revolutions of 1989, also known as the Fall of Communism, was a revolutionary wave that resulted in the end of most communist states in the world. Sometimes this revolutionary wave is also called the Fall of Nations or the Autumn of Natio ...

in the 1990s, it has dried up to some extent. The U.S. jeeps, developed during World War II, coined the word many people use for any type of light off-road vehicle. In the U.S., the Jeeps' successor from the mid 1980s was the AM General

HMMWV The High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV; colloquial: Humvee) is a family of light, four-wheel drive, military trucks and utility vehicles produced by AM General. It has largely supplanted the roles previously performed by the ori ...

series. The Red Army used the

GAZ-61 The GAZ-61 is a four wheel drive car from USSR manufacturer GAZ first introduced in 1938 by designer V. A. Gratchev, to replace his too-complex model GAZ-M2. History It was made by putting a GAZ-M1 body on a four-wheel-drive chassis (one of th ...

and

GAZ-64 The GAZ-64 was a 4x4 vehicle made by GAZ (Gorkovsky Avtomobilny Zavod, translated as Gorky Automobile Plant, which originally was a cooperation between Ford and the Soviet Union), succeeding the earlier GAZ-61. Its design was led by Vitaliy Grac ...

during World War II. The

Eastern Bloc The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc and the Soviet Bloc, was the group of socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America under the influence of the Soviet Union that existed du ...

used the

GAZ-69 The GAZ-69 is a four-wheel drive off-road vehicle produced by GAZ (ГАЗ, or ''Gorkovsky Avtomobilnyi Zavod'', Gorky Automobile Factory) between 1953 and 1956 and then by UAZ, in 1956–1972, though all of these light truck class vehicles were k ...

and UAZ-469 in similar roles. File:Mercedes Benz Unimog Turkey exhibition side.JPG, Unimog at IDEF'07 Arms Fair File:Wojsko Polskie Irak DA-SD-05-12334.JPEG, Two

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken *Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...

Honkers in Iraq File:VolvoL3314N.jpg, Volvo L3314N File:Mahindra.jpg,

Mahindra and Mahindra Mahindra & Mahindra Limited (M&M) is an Indian multinational automotive manufacturing corporation headquartered in Mumbai. It was established in 1945 as Mahindra & Mohammed and later renamed as Mahindra & Mahindra. Part of the Mahindra Group, ...

Classic used by the Indian Army File:ELORV.jpg, Soldiers from the

101st Airborne Division The 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) ("Screaming Eagles") is a light infantry division of the United States Army that specializes in air assault operations. It can plan, coordinate, and execute multiple battalion-size air assault operati ...

test prototype off-road vehicles File:MarshBuggy1928.jpg, Experimental marsh buggy, 1928, stuck in mud File:Bus crossing river (3).jpg, Off-road bus in Iceland

History

Technical

Criticism of off-road vehicles

Safety

Environment

Common off-road vehicles

All-terrain vehicle

Off-road motorcycle

Commercial, military and less common off-road vehicles

See also

References

Notes

Bibliography

External links