Four Wheeler July 2015

I get lots of goofy ideas. I don’t know where they come from. Nothing spurs them—they just appear. Like just a couple minutes ago when my poor, overworked managing editor, Lee Lovell, kindly asked if there was anything he could do to help with the last remaining stories I was working for this issue. My reply was, “Come to the office wearing a horned Viking helmet and every 13 minutes stand up and just below the threshold of a scream announce, ‘The mice are approaching.’ Then blow a battle call from a ram’s horn trumpet, sit back down, and resume your normal workflow.” If a coworker replied like that to such an innocuous query I think I’d probably have HR drag them away to the funny farm. Maybe I belong there,…

CHRISTIAN.HAZEL@FOURWHEELER.COM FWOTY CHEROKEE WINNER I have test driven the new Cherokee as a replacement for my wife’s KJ Liberty, and the interior and driving is impressive and the best pick in its class. I do wonder about the reliability and cost of service of today’s electronically controlled 4x4s in 10 years. There are a lot of XJ Cherokees still on the road due to their simplicity. Plus, my wife and I still like the manual transfer cases in our Liberty and TJ Wrangler (the Liberty’s NP242 is my favorite). So far, the Liberty will remain in our garage. AARON MEYER ZIONSVILLE, IN CHEROKEE HATE Your opening paragraph of the Four Wheeler of the Year story says those three vehicles are “designed to be capable off-road.” Both Jeeps will never be found off-road by anybody that has…

EDITOR@FOURWHEELER.COM THAT’S INTERESTING Kansas City Assembly Plant has now joined Dearborn Truck Plant as a builder of the F-150. Interesting factoid: The body shop has more than 500 new robots. Kia Trail’ster. We probably don’t need to tell you it’s all-wheel drive, based on the apostrophe. GM is reducing the Chevy and GMC powertrain warranty from 5 years, 100,000 miles to 5 years, 60,000 miles for ’16 models. Uber is thinking about chicks. UN Women and Uber are partnering to create a million jobs for women to be drivers by 2020. Kelley Blue Book has named its 10 Favorite New-for-2015 Cars. These include the Jeep Renegade and Ford F-150. Kelley Blue Book also named Best Family Cars for 2015, and the Ram 1500 made the list. So did the F-150, Nissan Pathfinder, and Chevy Tahoe. And AAA Arizona…

ken.brubaker@fourwheeler.com WE RECENTLY HAD THE OPPORTUNITY TO spend 17 days with the all-new ’15 Ford F-150. During this time we piled approximately 2,400 miles on the truck throughout Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina. We loaded the truck like it was a pack mule, covered a bunch of highway miles, and ran it through a variety of off-road conditions. The goal was to determine how Ford’s 13th-generation F-150 handled a variety of tasks and how it compared to other new 1⁄2-ton trucks on the market today. The Truck Ford provided us with a Ruby Red Super Crew fit with the 51⁄2-foot cargo box. The F-150 had the XLT trim and FX4 Off-Road package. Under the hood was the 3.5L Eco-Boost turbocharged V-6 engine bolted to a 6R80 six-speed automatic transmission followed by a new-for-2015…

editor@fourwheeler.com WORKING AT FOUR WHEELER ISN’T ALL horsepower and giant tires. There are long hours for little pay, and we have gotten so good at jumping through corporate hoops we could win Best in Show at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. That’d said, you didn’t pick up this magazine to listen to us whine—you want to be inspired. “Bucket list”, that sort of thing. The kind of trip you talk about for years to come. We make an effort to go on a “oncein-a-lifetime” trip at least once a year, and we have set up camp in nearly every state in the union. These are the trips that stand out in our memory as the most scenic, most remote, challenging, and all around most rewarding. It’s the kind of trip…

editor@fourwheeler.com HAVE YOU EVER THOUGHT ABOUT SELLING EVERYTHING YOU OWN, GETTING IN your 4x4, and exploring the world? If the answer is yes, then overlanding will appeal greatly to your adventurous side. At its core, overlanding doesn’t require you to be rich, but it doesn’t hurt. The concept is actually pretty simple: travel beyond the tarmac and explore the roads and trails less traveled, all while living out of your vehicle. Most overland adventures focus more on exploration than conquering one trail or extreme obstacle. Some of the more purposebuilt overland rigs are part RV, part tank, with a little doomsday prepper and Mad Max influences spread about. To get a better look and understanding at the overland lifestyle, we headed to the Overland Expo East weekend experience. For 2014, the Overland…