Four Wheeler April 2022

As I’m writing this, winter is in full swing. Well, full swing by what the calendar says anyway because there’s no snow at our place in northern Illinois. There have been a couple of teaser dustings, but the flakes are gone now. On the upside it means less road salt munching away at 4x4s but on the downside snow wheeling has to wait. I give snow wheeling a thumbs up. I’ve had the opportunity to attend some great snowy winter trail rides in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Idaho, and elsewhere. Clearly, I’m not alone in my fondness for winter wheeling. I recall hearing about winter trail rides selling out all available spots in just a short time. It’s very cool to point a 4x4 down a snowy…

It was Tuesday afternoon. Maybe it was Wednesday. I don’t know, but then again, most afternoons for me at that time were all pretty much the same. I would hammer away at my computer for the majority of the morning and early afternoon, then at 2:10 sharp, I’d hop in the Jeep and hustle to queue up at the elementary school to pick up my three boys. The school had been sitting in the same spot since it was built in 1960 when the only thing surrounding it for a mile in every direction was cow pasture. As I sat there in line about 100 yards from the pickup spot with the transmission in Park waiting for things to get moving, I was jarred by a sharp rapping on the…

LEGENDARY QUAGMIRE HAS A NEW OWNER It’s always been a dream of mine to own Quagmire. I’ve built several 4x4 trucks and Jeeps over the years, but Quag was always that iconic truck that was completely unique in the truck world. Mike Neibuhr did an amazing job designing, engineering, and building it. In the fall of 2020, I had been going through an old photo album and ran across two photos of Quag that I had taken at the 1998 4-Wheel Jamboree in Indianapolis. I remember pushing my 1-year-old son, Talon, in a stroller while checking out the trucks and hearing the sweet sound of a big-block Chevy rolling up behind me. I turned to see what it was and, to my surprise, it was Quag! I dug into the stroller storage…

JERED.KORFHAGE@FOURWHEELER.COM In The News When configuring the Hummer EV’s infotainment screen and its integrated auxiliary switches, there appears to be an easter egg poking fun at the Tesla Cybertruck. Icons can be assigned to various functions (off-road lights, a winch, etc.), and one of them seems to be the Hummer EV crawling over the Tesla. 1 Millennials, or those born from the late ’70s to the early ’90s, have surpassed Boomers in their demand for pickup trucks as well as electric vehicles, according to data from J.D. Power. 2 Rivian plans on building its new United States assembly plant outside of Atlanta, Georgia. The facility is said to provide 7,500 jobs and should produce 400,000 vehicles per year. Rivian is planning to invest $5 billion into the facility. Heritage Customs, the Dutch Land Rover specialists,…

SCREEN TIME The new Mesh Trail Screens from MasterTop are designed to provide an open-air feeling that lets in fresh air while blocking the sun’s harmful rays and keeping the contents of the Jeep in. Designed for the JL and JK Jeep Wranglers, this custom-designed three-piece quarter and rear mesh vehicle enclosure system is constructed of mesh fabric that is small enough to keep unwanted bugs out while still allowing fresh air to flow through the vehicle. The Mesh Trail Screens system can be combined with factory windows, providing an alternative to running a complete window set. Installation is said to be simple and should require only basic hand tools. INFO: MasterTop, 720/575-5440, mastertop.com BRONCO BACKUP LEDS The ZROADZ Bronco Rear Bumper LED Kit is a great way to add a pair of…

We at Four Wheeler pride ourselves on being the best at everything that we do, and we feel strongly that we put on the best SUV of the Year test in the industry, bar none. Our testing methods are thorough, objective, fair, and transparent. The journey that unfolds on the following pages is the culmination of hundreds of hours of hard work encompassing several grueling months. For Four Wheeler’s 2022 SUV of the Year, our judging panel was comprised of some of the most knowledgeable minds in the off-road industry. We brought together an all-star roster of past and present Four Wheeler editors with a combined time of more than 100 years on staff. Others on the diverse judging team came to us with extensive backgrounds in off-road, diesel, lifted, new,…