JONGA - A tribute to Indian army's favourite SUV

Thanks buddy... would un-leash few interesting facts about JONGA.

1. JONGA was Army's favorite vehicle for Rallying. All it needed was a 6 point rollcage for protection.

2. An Army Major once told that the maximum weight a JONGA was assigned to carry was the 106 mm RCL gun. It would glide through the desert carrying the RCL, its Ammunition, 3 member crew and holding 20 liters of water stored in the specially fabricated tank.

3. The fuel effeciency of the petrol powered JONGA was close to 3 - 6 kmpl.

4. Rajesh Pilot used to drive around in a JONGA.

5. Famous Magician P.C Sarkar's first car was a JONGA.

6. It is believed that JONGA would start offroading where JEEPs and Gypsies coundn't even dream of going in stock condition.

Well, the Jonga produced 145hp@3800rpm and 32.5kgm@2000rpm torque, as when it was used with a Hitchi carburater, and 125hp with the indian solex carb.

The figures stated otherwise as power figures(110hp) is for the diesel motor.

Very few early versions equipped with the Hitachi carb and hitachi distributer and these also had a 30" water fording option. the later versions with the solex carb and Lucas distributer could only ford as high as the distributer itself.

I currently own the VFJ Jonga having purchased it directly from the factory in 97. It has the HINO engine. As per the BHP figures, the original Nissan in line 6 developed 145bhp on crank and not the wheel as per the original Nissan manual. The VFJ OTOH develops 110bhp in its declawed non turbo engine develops 110bhp on the wheels and also close to 28kg/m of torque at a whopping 990 RPM. The original Nissan engine would roughly develop around 95bhp if measured on wheels with the Hitachi carb. The HINO engine pulverizes the original 3 speed due to its higher torque and output, one of the reasons VFJ has to remove the turbo and reduce the bhp from 138 to 110. I have gone through 3 original gear boxes so I know the predicament of this quite well. The last gearbox is running well due to my extra care of not really pushing the vehicle. Otherwise with the Hino or the original engine its a phenomenal off road vehicle coming quite close to my Gurkha on its off road abilities except the Gurha has even more clearance and the built in diff locks give it an undue advantage.

Dr. Arup Roy Chowdhury Ph.D

Welcome to the forum Dr.

Glad to see a true JONGA enthusiast here, even more glad to know that you also own a thoroughbred offroader in the form of Force Gurkha. It would be great if you can share some interior pics of your JONGA with us. If I am not mistaken, your JONGA has a A/C fitted. was it a factory fit ?? or you have got it retrofitted ?? Do post more about your experiences with the JONGA and Gurkha for everyone's benefit here.

Regards

Sabareesh

Hi Sabaresh,

Thank you very much for your warm welcome. It seems you know a good deal on 4WD and thats very refreshing to see. The a/c on my Jonga is retrofit, had to do some some mods like designing the mount and installing the condenser externally between the front bumper rather than over the radiator where it was too cramped. I shall be posting more pics and details on both the vehicles.

Here is one to start with, Gurkha was the only vehicle made in India to be tested by the reputed German 4WD mag, they took it through a severe off road test and bought along a G Wagen and Toyota Land Cruiser. Guess what.........the underpowered Gurkha outperformed both the vehicles and earned the title of Haarter IM Buschtaxi which roughly translated means hardest off roader out there. They also found that it had the industry standard tow capacity of 2.75t thanks to its Mercedes 407d derived rear diff. So I guess for an Indian vehicle with German pedigree, it did us proud.

Thanks Arup for registering here! very good of you! well friends meet my friend ARUP from kolkata who has a looadsa experience in all kindsa vehicles SUVs . MUVs , National and internationally!!

THanks!!

By the way, this also calls for a brief introduction, thaks to Devilzsri, I am now officially in this forum. I and probably my entire family including my brothers have been tinkering with cars since we were kids. My late father would build and restore WW-II JEEPS and vintage bikes as a hobby so I guess it got inculcated in us. It wasn't smooth sailing as most in India looked down on this hobby and only now autos are being looked at beyond a means of transportation. We got taunts from relatives about being mechanics but that never deterred us. My auto life started with a Bajaj Chetak which used to be tuned and raped daily, it then progressed to a Royal Enfield Bullet when I was in 8th grade, my feet hardly reached the ground but I would wait for my father to come back from work so I could take it out. The Enfield didn't last long as my father and I loved to ride hard, the engine was simply not engineered for that kind of abuse. Within 8 months it was history and my father bought home a brand new blue colored RD350 which was all Japanese being the initial release, it was also the full 39.5bhp versionm exactly .5 bhp more than what our brand new Maruti 800 made. It was the gateway to the world of high performance bikes, 7 stiches on head, various bruises on shoulder and legs, that passion still continues. We also were the initial first time buyers of Gypsy and that served us well and also got me into 4WD vehicle. That Gypsy was all Japanese including the carburettor and the engine was just too good compared to the Mahindra on offer then. At 16 I went to US to settle and study, my car quest began there, at 18 I had the original black colored Knight Rider 'Kit' Trans Am with a 5.7L V8 and Turbo Hydramatic auto tranny. That thing did burn outs at 80kmph with ease, the US vehicles specially like T/A etc are designed for low end torque unlike German and Japanese vehicles so burn outs are the norm. The T/A was replaced by a Merkur which was the German version of Ford Cosworth RS, then a VW GTI 16V followed, after that a Suzuki Vitara which sadly got stolen. I replaced that with the ultra faithful Mazda Protege' which was a wolf in sheep's clothing. I drove the Mazda for 200,000+ reliable miles and sold it to buy a rare Honda Accord V6 manual 5 speed which I modded with Mugen parts, that car is still around in US at my house there, it has done close to 535000 miles on original engine, a testament to Honda engineering and Mobil-I.

On bike front I started my quest in US with a FZR-1000, then a rare race model FZR-750R which I raced briefly in WERA class as well as AMA sanctioned races. I sold that for the HONDA RC-45 which I raced with good success for an amateur and that bike is still in my posession. I will end here now as I am sure I have bored all.