Is the Chinese military’s off-road sport utility vehicle the toughest on the planet?

The People’s Liberation Army rates its Chinese military BJ80 SUV the “most reliable off-road vehicle in the world” after the boxy four-wheel drive model achieved test scores that were seven times higher than those of the Mercedes-Benz SUV on which it was reportedly modelled, according to an official document seen by the South China Morning Post.

“It is an incredibly high score considering the ordeals it had to go through,” said Song Kai, an associate researcher specialising in automobile structural fatigue at the College of Mechanical and Vehicle Engineering at Hunan University in central China.