Four Wheeler March 2016

I’ve always loved a good road trip. Even when I was a little squirt and my brother and I rode seatbeltless in the back seat of Mom’s Monte Carlo with nothing more to entertain us than the view out the window, some Donald Duck comics, and a few homemade books on tape (her reading books aloud into a microphone so we could play them back on our little mono-speaker cassette player), the allure of new horizons beckoned. Upstate New York, Georgia, Florida, Iowa, Texas, Louisiana, and more all passed by our windows. Most of the time my little nose was pressed against the glass with my wide eyes taking in all the sights. When I got older, the road trip sights that piqued my interests switched from inflatable parking lot gorillas…

CHRISTIAN.HAZEL@FOURWHEELER.COM PLAIN COVER CARRYALL First, let me say that have enjoyed Four Wheeler magazine for years. I enjoyed your “Spotter’s Guide” article in the Sept. ’15 issue. I wanted to suggest another GM model of the first generation timeframe that may warrant mentioning: the GMC Carryall. I owned a ’63 GMC Carryall for years, and it took me and brought me home from many an adventure. Mine was the 1⁄2-ton version with straight axles front and rear and leaf springs. The drivetrain had the SM420 four-speed and the divorced Rockwell T-221 T-case with the PTO. What was special for this truck was the engine. It was the 305ci V-6. It developed 175 hp and 355 lb-ft of torque at 1,600 rpm. I could put the truck in First and start it with the…

EDITOR@FOURWHEELER.COM THAT’S INTERESTING Indeed, interesting: That Jeep Wrangler pickup we’ve been awaiting may not have Wrangler in it after all. It might actually be a new Jeep pickup with new DNA. Hmmm. More Jeep interesting: The first Cherokee produced in China has reached the end of the assembly line at the Changsha plant. And kept rolling. In order to be purchased. If you were sitting by the fire-place thinking to yourself, “I wonder how many vehicles GM sold globally in the first nine months of 2015,” then: 7.2 million. To answer your follow-up thoughts, truck sales in North America jumped 16 percent, Cadillac had record sales in China, South Korea numbers were up 11 percent, and total sales overall were down 1 percent. Corn. Leaders Farms in Ohio grew a 7-acre corn maze in the…

EDITOR@FOURWHEELER.COM SLINKY WRANGLER Already have a Rubicon Express Extreme-Duty Long-Arm suspension on your Jeep JK but covet remote-reservoir Fox coilovers with dual-rate springs, air bumpstops, and all necessary hardware and brackets to make it all work? Lucky you because the company now offers a coilover upgrade package for its top-flight Wrangler suspension, including everything you need to make the swap and take your JK to the next level. INFO: Rubicon Express, 800/776-0767, rubiconexpress.com 2015 F-150 COILOVER KIT If you’ve got a ’15 Ford F-150 and you’re the type who doesn’t buy junky parts for your brand-new $40,000 to $60,000 pickup, then BDS has the 4-inch suspension system for you. Allowing up to 35-inch tires, the BDS coilover conversion suspension features Fox 21⁄2-inch remote-reservoir coilovers up front and Fox 2.0 IFP shocks in the rear. Naturally,…

editor@fourwheeler.com HAVING REGULARLY ATTENDED the annual Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) Show for nearly two decades, we’ve seen a lot of trends come and go. It wasn’t long ago that nearly all SEMA 4x4 builds were simply garbage magnets assembled by some marketing manager that had never even driven off-road. Fortunately, it looks like those days are behind us—for the most part. Don’t get us wrong, there are still a ton of show-only 4x4s, but the ratio of functional off-road–ready wheeling rigs has certainly changed for the better. Every year, the SEMA Show has a different feel and vibe. Some years the attention is drawn to the latest hot rod, other years it’s vintage vehicles, UTVs, or race cars. This year proved to be the year of the offroad vehicle. We saw…

christian.hazel@fourwheeler.com THIS IS NOT A HARDCORE OFF-ROADING story. I didn’t thrash-build a vehicle against an impossible timeline and then hit the trail against all odds to tackle the most insane obstacles in the country. There are no heroics, unless you think spending quality time with your offspring and honoring your parents qualifies. My mom and dad were big travelers. A couple years in southeast Asia on the government’s dime notwithstanding, road trips were his specialty, and we had plenty of long-distance adventures when my siblings and I were young. Some went smoothly, some were disasters, but all were memorable. There was one more crosscountry trip they had been looking forward to making after he retired that hit many of their bucket-list destinations. Just stuff they were interested in, enjoyed, or just…