Yeah I would love to see what he would have said about the M series Mercedes failed the moose test and rolled in 1997! That was effectively the same thing Wherrit was doing in that HJ.
It was no doubt cultural cringe that was becoming so popular in the 70’s and 80’s. It was good to be seen to shoot down local products. Having said that, they were agricultural and were also using out of date GM hand me down design and technology. The handling was rubbish and wasn’t corrected until RTS was introduced.
As for power steering failure, I actually had that happen heading into the M2 toll booths in about 2002. The bottom crank pulley split and the belt dissentgrated. I nearly ran into the toll booth. I couldn’t find the two row pulley I needed to fix it over the Easter weekend so had to drive it the 400km back home with no power steering.