Thoughts and reasons for your chosen rig

[ColoradoPacific]

Bought my Tacoma as a daily driver, to replace a crummy old Ford Ranger. I always tinker with my vehicles, so it wasn't long before I had a roof rack, intake, and new shifter. Then I had a really good year financially, and bought new wheels and stepped up to 33" tires. Then I really got into prepping, and well... the rest is history! Found myself a great local 4-wheeling club and attended a couple Toyota events, which got me hooked even more. Now I'm broke because I can't not buy things for my truck or my other prepper stuff. It's a love-hate thing hahaha!

 

[Disco_Berty]

I had already bought a new LR4 and a Range Rover evoque at the same time. Had some issues with the evoque so sent it back to Land rover and decided to buy an LR3 for cash specifically for work (my role changed so I was doing far more miles per year and needed something comfortable for motorway miles) and I wanted to do what is called green laning in the UK (roads that time forgot and have not had tarmac applied). So I bought an LR3 that was already 7 years old, had normal mileage on and was at a value that I would not be too worried about getting pin striping on.

This, plus my interest in camping and hunting then led me to overlanding. Once I started down this road, I started to look at vehicle mods that would make my families life easier on the trail as well as safer.

 

[erinw.rrc]

So... our infatuation with Land Rovers started when we bought our house. We found that we were going to places like Home Depot or Lowe's on a regular basis, and never had enough room in our 2002 Saab 9-5 for all the stuff we needed to haul. Since the Saab was also my hubby's daily diver, we needed something that had both room and comfort. We considered a Chevy Tahoe, but being that we've only ever owned European vehicles, it seemed only natural that we would lean that direction. We test drove a 2012 Range Rover and it was love at first sight.

A few months later we took it off road at a local OHV park where we got a few pin stripes (a whole other story, but we also ran into the local Land Rover club who was having a big event at the park). The pinstriping buffed out okay, but after that my husband was like, "that was awesome, but we need a vehicle where we don't care about the paint so much..." That same month we bought a 1992 Range Rover Classic. It was just downhill from there because a couple of years later I bought my 2012 D4 with the intention of making it a rig. Three Land Rovers later, here we are.

 

[MOAK]

My story, errr , my vehicles story, in a nutshell.... Back in the early 70s a buddy of mine had a GMC pick up 4x4. It was a blast, taking all the dirt roads in Ohio in that thing. I ended up in California and a buddy I worked with there had a 70 K5 Blazer and one trip out to the desert and I was hooked. A year later I bought my first FJ40. Much to my dismay my EX-wife's idea of a good vacation, was good room service, at a shitty resort. She also totaled the 40. Life, career, divorce, bad business, all got in the way for 20 years... Remarried in 87' to a gal that loves to hike, backpack, sleep in a tent, and overland. With our kids raised and out the door we bought a 97' TJ and took our first trip up to the Gaspe' that spring. In 04' we bought our Rubicon and I spent 9 years trying to make it Landcruiser like, all the while saying to my wife, someday we'll get a Landcruiser, you'll see the difference then. Three years ago a friend drove me to Atlanta and I picked up what we now affectionately have named the Diehlmobile. Amazingly, the Rubicon sold for more than I paid for the cruzer. In the past 3 years we have ticked off 55 thousand miles, most of which has been overlanding, out west, up north, and in our very own Alleghenies. Something I have rediscovered, Comfort and off road prowess are not mutually exclusive. Oh, that jeep thing that we all see on jeep's bumperstickers? I completely understand, I get it. That's why I drive the Diehlmobile.. ( LOL ) or ( LUF (Lighten Up Francis) Don't get me wrong, jeeps are fine vehicles for what they are, but once the farm boy has been to Paris, he can never go home.

 

[VCeXpedition]

This is kind of a memory invoking question, I drifted back a few years to try to find a good answer.

My car is a 95 Landcruiser 80 series, I would call it a Poverty Pack Option as it had no sunroof, no 3rd row seats, cloth interior, and fixed (not sliders) rear quarter windows. It was spec'd out by my company to support the extreme temperature testing we would do in Canada in the winter and Death Valley in the summer to name a few. It served in that role for 3 years until they had to turn it back in, lease was up.

I jumped at the chance to own a Landcruiser, I had owned Toyota pickups and *other* 4WD's up until then, but the 80 series even then, was the pinnacle. I bought it stock and have never looked back.

I have slowly adapted it to overlanding, although that wasn't a thing 18 years ago in 1998, but it was what fired my rocket! I had always loved to camp and explore, but also twirl around any gas-powered anything - motorcycles, quads, etc.
Early on, rock crawling was a challenge and I found out early that if I was to use this as essentially a daily driver, it wouldn't also make a good rock crawler. So I added a 44 gallon auxiliary fuel tank and a supercharger and decided it would be used for 'exploration'. Along came different iterations of suspension upgrades, different tire choices, bumpers, batteries, doo-dads, etc.

Since then it has been my #1 project vehicle. I've had others that have come and gone, including another 80 series, but I like my white 80. And I'm pretty sure it likes me.

I've put in basically a full kitchen including stove & sink, fridge, etc. Next to that is my sleeping quarters for one. Adding recovery gear and other accouterments has been an addiction, Amazon has been good to me and the UPS guy knows right where I live!

So now, 18 years later, I still enjoy it as much or more, and now that the hobby of exploration has a name, and a lot of like-minded people, it is all the more fun.

 

[Barton Fink]

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[vegasjeepguy]

My 04 Rubicon is my second Jeep after my 99 Sahara got t-boned in 2007. I didn't know squat about Jeeps and very little about four wheeling but got educated with my Sahara. My accident was an excellent excuse to upgrade to a Rubicon and wanted to stay with a TJ as I am not a JK fan.


With 38k miles and a 4" lift it was already a good start. Winch, front bumper, rear tire carrier, armor, suspension upgrades, etc. only improved on it. The biggest drawback of the TJ is the lack of interior storage. Within a year I started shopping for 416 style trailer and found a CDN M101 locally in excellent condition.


The only thing I would've done differently if I could do it over again would be to get an LJ Rubicon.

 

[Joey D]

I had a Honda Passport as a winter vehicle when I had my Volvo and it wasn't doing so hot. I needed something that could cope with the Michigan winters and still be comfortable enough to live with everyday. I test drove an Xterra and didn't like anything about it and I wanted to avoid a Jeep Wrangler since I didn't find them very livable and everyone I know with one always seemed to have mechanical issues with them. I had always wanted a Tacoma since seeing the Toyota Truck in BTTF so I figured I'd go check one out at the Toyota dealer. I drove it, loved it, and bought it. I had no idea what Overlanding really was and had only really ever done camping out the of the back of my Ford Focus.

Once I got my truck I started looking around and discovered Expedition Overland, fell in love with the idea of making my truck an adventure rig and the rest is history.

 

[TreXTerra]

Long story. My first experience with anything 4WD was a rental YJ back in the late 80s. My dad was stationed on Oahu and he took me out of school for a week to go to Maui and see the Humback Whales migrate. Out rental car was a red YJ with half hard-doors and a bikini top. Later we moved to Colorado and my dad's POS VW Sirocco shot it's transmission all over the highway (only 90K on a manual trans? Really VW?); it was replaced with an '89 Pathfinder. The day after that brand new SUV came home, my dad woke me up before the sun rose, we snuck the car out of the garage and took it up Old Stagecoach Road; this was back when it was still dirt. I'm sure today it would seem like a tame graded dirt road, but there were mud puddles to splash in. We brought the Pathy back covered in mud. Mom was not happy.

The Pathy got us out exploring Colorado and plowing through Front Range snow storms, but it had a bum ticker and spent its first birthday in the shop getting a new short block. A year later it started to burn oil as a fast as fuel, so we traded it in on an FJ80 right before moving to Utah. I learned to drive in that 80 series and cut my teeth on Moab slickrock. When I got older the family bought a red XJ that was kind of my defacto car; it too was a lemon and was constantly in the shop. It was sold to make way for a Honda Civic, which was far more practical for a grad student in California.

I moved back home and kept driving the Civic until it was rear-ended by an inattentive teenager. The car was repaired, but I took the chance to get rid of it in favor of something more sturdy. I had been a fan of the FJ Cruiser and set out of find one, only to be disappointed by the cave-like interior and poor visibility. The JKU was another option, but they were going for big money on the used market and Chrysler had failed as a company with no sign of investment to keep them afloat. I still had a sour taste in my mouth from the XJ, the Jeep reliability numbers were not good, and I didn't want to buy into a brand that might not exist in a year.

With a great deal of arm-twisting I looked at the XTerra. I didn't think much of them at first, mostly because I was used to the "cute" yellow ones being driving by air-headed girls to the mall. A Nissan fan set me right on how capable and tough they really were. I started looking for a manual with the locking rear diff, which are apparently made of unobtanium. One popped up for sale in my city and I snatched it up. I never really intended to mod the vehicle, but I joined the local owner's club to connect with others and make new friends. At the first meetup, I was running a stock rig with some decent tires and a bunch of cosmetic junk (side steps, brush guard, etc). The mods started by removing those factory accessories and selling them; but with @Maxterra 's rig (and a few other guys) as inspiration at every meet, it is hard to not get the itch.

Overlanding just seemed like a natural use for the way the build has gone. Honestly, I'm probably overweight and over-armored for this, but my XTerra was never intended to be just one thing. It's my daily, my tow rig for motorcycles, the bug out vehicle, the snow stomper, rock cralwer, Home Depot hauler, hedge remover, and everything else I need in a vehicle. That's why I've never made a drawer system, I actually need that cargo space.

 

[Explore Maine]

I bought my little rig as a daily driver. I wanted something with AWD and the ability to do some soft roading and then one thing led to the next.

 

[Steve]

I merged the two similar threads.

 

[erinw.rrc]

I merged the two similar threads.

I was wondering why the thread got so long all of a sudden... explained.

 

[Kelly]

I've owned a CJ, and a Scout 2, that were setup well for off roading, but not that great on extended trips. When I bought my 1995 ZJ, I was moving to Colorado, and needed a 4wd everyday driver. After the "New" wore off, I started the modifications. I discovered it has a lot of features I really like, that have made me hold on to it. Things like: V-8; solid axles (good articulation); set up to tow 4 wheels down; narrow; short (rockers to roof), but still long enough to sleep inside; rear seats fold flat; & comfortable interior.

 

[hardtrailz]

My rig is going to be a 2003 gmc envoy 4x4 (trailblazer).

You need any help...let me know. I built several of this platform.

 

[Lassen]

I've owned a CJ, and a Scout 2, that were setup well for off roading, but not that great on extended trips. When I bought my 1995 ZJ, I was moving to Colorado, and needed a 4wd everyday driver. After the "New" wore off, I started the modifications. I discovered it has a lot of features I really like, that have made me hold on to it. Things like: V-8; solid axles (good articulation); set up to tow 4 wheels down; narrow; short (rockers to roof), but still long enough to sleep inside; rear seats fold flat; & comfortable interior.
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I miss my ZJ...:-(. Nice looking rig!

 

[mase001]

I had a 2013 TT FJ and loved it but with a child seat in the back there just wasn't enough legroom in the front. So I sold it and moved to a 4Runner. Slightly more legroom in front with child seat, slightly more usable rear doors. I still miss the ruggedness and purity of the FJ but the 4Runner is plenty capable. Especially with tires and a proper lift!

I bought it for overland/camping/snow car for cabin/daily driver. The 4Runner really is a good combination of a lot of things. It ticks off a lot of boxes!

 

[ASNOBODY]

I spent a few years of indecisive browsing before seeing an FJ that made me think about it as an option. I was seriously considering among other things a new Rubicon, but test drove a few and it just didn't feel right for me, despite my great affinity for its exterior shape, dynamic functionality, mod options and aesthetics/history.

I had a plan of attack for a few vehicles, including lists of items I would need/want for each choice just in case.

I finally decided I was to buy a brand new 4Runner after checking out a TRD Pro, but promised myself if I found a 2013 TT FJ that checked all the boxes I would pick it up. Quite literally the next day after making that decision, I drove by a dealership that had a 2013 TT FJ. I turned around and took it home. No regrets at all.

What it boils down to really is, I grew up camping and exploring with my father in his FJ40. I get a bit of comfort knowing that 10 years after his death, I still have a sort of adventure bond with him in this legacy vehicle. I love my FJ because it takes me to places where I can admire other rigs too. :)

 

[raundhaus]

Thoughts and reasons... Well I don't make much money working at a youth camp and I am extra cheap to boot. However, I do appreciate quality. I chose a 2nd gen 4runner with 22re. Though it costs more up front than a Cherokee or pathfinder or similar, none of the competition gets 20+ mpg, bulletproof, easy to fix engine, super cheap parts, and Toyota quality from the ground up. It was an easy pick for a miser like me.

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[NVBEAR]

I selected the 2008 4 runner due to the storage and to me it was comparable to the fj80 I had in high school . I selected one with 3.43 gears 1 owner (was a bad choice, it came from Vegas and never used 4wd had a failed actuator ) v6 has more than enough power. It was low mileage and i was ready [emoji1531].


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[Vyscera]

When I started dating my wife she had a 2004 Silverado 1500 crew 2wd. After driving it for a couple years I was very fond of it and its set up. So when I replaced my 85 C-10 I got a 2007 K2500HD. All the things I loved, with way more capability.