Dan Dubeau
Ultra Member
Modern day jeeps are great if you want to show off your rubber duck collection. Don't take them off the pavement though, or else all those ducks might fall off your dashboard.....Wittle Wubber Duckies Evwywhere
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Several Regions have held meetups already, but others are being planned or are evaluating the interest. The Calgary Area Meetup is set for Saturday July 12th at 10am. The signup thread is here! Arbutus has also explored interest in a Fraser Valley meetup but it seems members either missed his thread or had other plans. Let him know if you are interested in a meetup later in the year by posting here! Slowpoke is trying to pull together an Ottawa area meetup later this summer. No date has been selected yet, so let him know if you are interested here! We are not aware of any other meetups being planned this year. If you are interested in doing something in your area, let everyone know and make it happen! Meetups are a great way to make new machining friends and get hands on help in your area. Don’t be shy, sign up and come, or plan your own meetup!
If you could own just one special vehicle what would it look like?
- Thread starter Elektrishun
- Start date
Sus wouldn't bite so I'll start by saying you nailed it.
Years ago I attended a Suzuki LJ rally in my 79 LJ 80. We had a dozen or so LJs and one 413 show up, the only model not in attendance was the LJ 50 model. One attendee came from somewhere in the US midwest. He had two on a trailer behind his Dodge Ram and a third in the box. We wheeled for three days, most of us staying off the boulders, not wanting damage, but no where was off limits. Most of the rigs were bone stock, a few had larger tires and a couple were mildly built.
During that time I only used 4wd once, climbing a washed out section with lots of fist sized loose rocks and exposed tree roots, the 4wd was for the roots benefit. Each day we would travel as a group to one of the local highlights and later in the day we'd head out in ones or two and explore further. One morning our little parade of twelve rounded a corner and met the back end of a similar group except they were Jeeps and they were stuck. The first LJ edged over to the side of the track and just putted right on past, followed by the next eleven or so. No drama, noise or scrabbling tires. The Jeeps caught up to us at the lookout and by that time the barbecues were going and the dogs and burgers were hitting the buns. The Jeepers were very interested and spent quite some time looking at the little 360cc two strokers that showed them how its done.
Light, small and nimble as heck. I plan on doing a resto on my 79 LJ 81 soon.
I love stories like that. Of course, the thing about stories like that is that they often reverse. Also evidence of why a hummer isn't a backwoods vehicle.
Getting away from jeeps and suzukis, I have a story too. We had just bought our first front wheel drive car. The original K-car. The family went to breakfast at a restaurant on the river and parked in the lot down the hill. A bunch of guys were at a table by the window making fun of our car. They had a broad selection of rear wheel drive vehicles. In particular they focussed on the bull shit advertising about the performance of front wheel drive in the snow. As luck would have it, it started dumping. By the time breakfast was done, there was 6" on the ground. When they left, they all got stuck on the hill. We got into our K-Car and simply drove around them while they stared.
Me being the A-hole I could be back then, I turned around at the top and drove back down, did a circle in the lot and drove right back up, and then left. Today, I'd have pulled them up. Back then I just wanted them to eat my dust. My wife was so pissed at me.
A few weeks later we saw that gang again and they laughed about what I did and then wanted to know all about front wheel drive. So we pulled our tables together and had some more great laughs.
Proxule
Ultra Member
Only one option IMO, Tatra!
DPittman
Ultra Member
Yup the front wheel drive of the K car was the ONLY good thing about those vehicles ( other than they were affordable).....at least in my opinion. Many many others would disagree and tell me there was NOTHING good about those bucket of sheeet cars.
(I have to admit when they were new I liked the look of them).
eotrfish
Ultra Member
Susquatch - we may have to agree to disagree
The little known buhanka ( Russian for bread loaf) will run circles around any jeep in wilderness conditions - common do anything go anywhere vehicle in Mongolia.
They’re hell to ride in. I’m not sure if they have any springs but it sure feels like the axles are solidly mounted to the frame.
According to two different AI apps, they sold 3.5 million of those things. Obviously, a lot of people felt differently about them than you did. We had 3 of them ourselves. An original, a wagon, and a Lebaron. We loved each one more than the prior. The Lebaron was an awesome car - we absolutely loved it. When we sold it, we went out of our way to make sure it found a good home with new owners. They had it for 10 more years and loved it like we did.
Cars and trucks tend to be very personal choices. Some people love a given model and some hate it. Finding and keeping a market niche is the holy grail for automakers. If you can make something that a big segment love and then only make minor changes as time passes, you can make a fortune. Once the breakeven for development and tooling costs is past, it's profit time. Auto makers deliberately try to hit that love/hate spot where some people love them and some hate them. A compromise is sure death. History is full of failed models and equally full of wild successes. By any measure you want to name, the K-car was a wild success. The fact that you didn't like it is actually a testament to how well the K-car fit its market niche.
Kernel Sanders
Well-Known Member
NOT this car I spotted while driving x-country a few years ago lol
Look! bush bar too lololololol
Look! bush bar too lololololol
It's a long story but I was asked to help find an engine for a 1990 Toyota a couple years ago. The shop found one north of Toronto, I had a truck go get it. Wrong year. Had a friend return it with my truck. They found another one in Cleveland, some sketchy wrecking yard I absolutely did not linger in any longer than I had to.
Apparently the car was the parents wedding day car, the daughters university car, now the daughter was getting married, all the kids learned to drive using it etc
Some people form weird connections with vehicles and the memories outweigh the vehicles values
It would need a big sunroof for me to even get into it........ Even so, I'd have one leg out each door. The car would look like I was wearing a pair of yellow and black shorts.
I'd pay good money to see that...
Yes, but our memories and our dreams are a huge part of who we are today.
Sorry, I can't erase the image in my mind of you poking around in a Cleveland wrecking yard with hungry eyes eying you up and down from every angle......
Aarknoid
Super User
That is an excellent way to describe them, I'm not hating on them, but the few times i was subjected to them it was for decidedly not off road things
Your wish is my command.
Had to laugh. Gotta wonder what AI was thinking when it added a third hand steering the car......
PS - I take e-transfers.
Dan Dubeau
Ultra Member
It's probably drivin ya nuts.....