Sometimes bikes just don’t work as pack-horses. Creating decent content requires transporting camera equipment and the like to some weird and wonderful places. This is where our newly acquired Suzuki Jimny ‘go-anywhere’ support vehicle fits the bill.
With the Jimny not having a traditional boot space, to maximise packing space, we needed to fold down the rear seats, which then provided us with decent packing space for all of our equipment (groceries & school bags also apply here).
We needed to figure out a way to protect the inside of the vehicle. On our first attempts, we found that our equipment slid around in the back, which would cause damage to the inside of the vehicle in the long run, if a solution was not found. After many hours of researching the internet, a potential solution presented itself…
Enter Takla Products
This is a South African company that is based in Kyalami, these guys are the best in the business in manufacturing high-quality interior protection solutions. After consulting with them, we decided to go with their ‘signature range’ Cantech fabric throughout the vehicle, this is a more expensive option, however, it comes with a Lifetime Warranty—so it’s worth the extra spend.
This is a high-quality, fully waterproof fabric which has been designed to withstand whatever a typical African adventure throws at them. So yes, they are extremely durable. Our seat covers are diamond-stitched and have a luxury feel to them. Our ZA Bikers logo is embroidered onto the front seats, which really finishes them off nicely.
At the back, we went with their fully integrated load liner, which completely protects the loading area of the Jimny. We can now load pretty much anything we like into the back of the Jimny with peace of mind knowing that our vehicle is fully protected. We’ve tested this now several times and can report that the padded fabric of the load liner provides enough friction so that our equipment no longer slides around as before. This is exactly what we needed to convert our Jimny’s unconventional boot into a practical pack-horse.
One of the most overlooked areas of any vehicle is the footwells, when in fact, this area gets more wear and tear than anywhere else in your vehicle. Takla Products has a solution for this too with their fully integrated TakMats. Unlike traditional floormats, the TakMats cover every square inch of the footwells, providing protection from muddy boots, etc… We now have even more possibilities for additional ‘protected’ packing space behind the front seats. Yay!
Overall, we have been really impressed with Takla Products, their customer service has been excellent so far…
For more information visit: www.takla.co.za
