Biographies

Well, there is much more to team ABT4x4 FireTruck than a capable jeep. In any four wheel driving team there are at least 2 other vital ingredients: a driver and a spotter.

Driver

Driver:             Shane Elliott
Occupation:     Marketing Product Manager (Scientific Instruments)
DOB:                July 1972
Residence:       Melbourne, Australia.

Shane has been building and driving the FireTruck since last century (well, 1999) and knows the rig backwards. His parents and friends had various 4 wheel drives and Jeeps while he was growing up, but he caught the real 4-wheeling ‘sickness’ during a stint in the USA where he lived and worked in Colorado for a couple of years in the late 1990’s.

After a few rockcrawling (4-wheeling on rocky terrain) trips in Utah and Colorado with Don Bernier and the Geckos rockcrawling club, Shane was hooked (and still is!!). “I always loved the outdoors, and was a keen rockclimber so I already had an affinity with rocks. Rockcrawling was almost a natural progression!”

On returning to Australia in ’99 he bought a red ’97 TJ Wrangler (later to be dubbed the ‘FireTruck’) and has been building and driving it ever since. Shane still loves the rocks, but also gets a kick out of the variety that all terrain events have to offer. “Spectators love to see vehicles built from something they can buy from their local car yard – it’s something they can relate to”.

Spotter

Spotter:             Zach Forsyth
Occupation:       IT Security
DOB:                  January 1974
Residence:         Melbourne, Australia.

Zach has been involved with jeeps ever since he bought his first vehicle back in 2001.

His first experiences four wheel driving were behind the wheel of a suzuki when his dad had to operate the foot pedals as he was too young to reach. The suzuki was soon upgraded to a landcruiser which he got to drive more and more as he got older. It was clear that a passion for four wheel driving was evolving.

Zach finally finished schooling and a decision was made between a fast sports car and a Jeep Wrangler. Common sense prevailed and ever since then he has been building the jeep into a capable trail rig. Zach and Shanes jeep's virtually mirrored each others modifications to make them more trailworthy, and able to tackle harder and harder trails.

After hundreds of trail runs and picking lines over the hardest obstacles it was an easy decision to become a spotter for Team Firetruck.

Zach has an intense passion for jeeps and four wheel driving and uses his jeep as a project vehicle for Ausjeepoffroad product reviews