Who am I? Editor and founder of 4XJournal

There are plenty of you in the 4WD and overlanding space that won’t know me and my background with vehicles and content creation — so here’s a quick introduction into who I am, what I’ve done over the years, and why 4XJournal now exists.

My name is René Vermeer, and a few years ago, if you told me I would be into four-wheel drives, I would have told you you’d be dreaming. I’m a performance car guy through and through and have worked in the performance car industry for nearly a decade, running NZ Performance Car Magazine, Timeattackr.com, and responsible for photography and stories for other automotive media outlets.

This was the case until the camping bug hit and I bought myself an Audi Allroad V8 to build into a touring and camping vehicle. I completed an 18-day trip around the South Island with this very basic setup (Feldon Crow’s Nest, small 12V setup, 18L fridge, and so forth). However, seeing where others were going in their ‘real’ 4WDs always had me yearning for more.

Why a Land Cruiser? My partner’s family is Land Cruiser mad and I felt that if I bought anything else, I would have been disowned. But seriously, they’ve all got Land Cruisers, I work at Toyota, and they’re just epic trucks — it just made sense. I will have a complete rundown on the Land Cruiser on 4XJournal in the ‘4WD Spotlights’ section. 

Why 4XJournal? Naturally, I’m a storyteller. With whatever I am passionate about personally, I love telling the stories in that realm. I can’t help but want to document things, photograph moments, and write about things people are doing, achieving, and building in their sheds. When looking around for this type of content in this space myself when I started getting into it, there wasn’t really an outlet that matched the quality and type of content I was seeking.

What is that exactly? Four-wheel drive adventure stories, and the trucks that get you there. The people involved in the scene, and the brands behind the builds.
4XJournal will be a premium stock, quarterly magazine capturing those elements of the 4WD scene here in New Zealand. so if you’ve got an exciting 4WD adventure you think needs documenting, or a special truck build, let me know — let’s tell the story!