Four Wheeler November 2015

I realized a dream this past summer. My oldest son, Charlie, and I drove my dad’s Toyota Tacoma 4x4 from my parents’ house in Marshfield, Massachusetts, over a scenic, meandering cross-country route to our home in San Diego, California. In all, we travelled about 3,800 miles, almost quite literally from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, give or take a hundred feet. We hit Niagara Falls in New York; A Christmas Story House museum in Cleveland, Ohio; Mount Rushmore and the town of Deadwood in South Dakota; Little Big Horn Battlefield National Monument in Montana; Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming; and a whole bunch of other stuff up, over, around, and in between. We shared a full week of quality time, had awesome adventures, and made memories that will last…

CHRISTIAN.HAZEL@FOURWHEELER.COM ON TARGET? First, let me express my belief that in the short period of time you have been responsible for the content of Four Wheeler magazine, it has improved dramatically. The July issue was nearly perfect and is an issue that will make it into my automotive reference library for future reading. I have really enjoyed the “Backward Glances” (I am old enough to have personally driven the original Bronco when it was new) but also the recent article on the history of the Suburban, and the “F Series Facts” in the July issue offer a very interesting historical perspective. Articles such as “Ten Terrific Trips” and “Six Flags Over Big Bend” offer us the chance to bring out our maps and take a challenging road trip from the comfort of our…

EDITOR@FOURWHEELER.COM That’s Interesting → 100 Things For Every Gearhead to Do Before They Die is a new book designed to give you an auto-centric send-off. It’s a guide to automotive museums, driving schools, factory tours, roads to take, and more. Get it through a site like amazon.com. → The seven vehicles no one wants to own? Iseecars.com looked over 5 million new ’14 model year vehicles sold and then went back and looked a year later to see how many were now being sold as used. The winning losers: Buick Regal, Chevy Sonic, BMW X1, Dodge Charger, Mercedes-Benz CClass, Chevy Cruze, and Nissan Frontier. → What’s a VelociRaptor 600, you ask? It’s a package from Hennessey Performance for the ’15 Ford F-150 FX4. The supercharged upgrade nets you 600 horses via the 2.9L supercharger…

EDITOR@FOURWHEELER.COM HAPPY ANNIVERSARY If you’re old-school, Yamaha colors will always be yellow and black. To pay homage to its roots, Yamaha is offering its ’16 lineup in the bumblebee scheme, including the insanely popular YFZ450R quad. With stuff like a 2.9-gallon fuel tank, electronic fuel injection, a long-travel suspension with reservoir shocks, and disc brakes, the ’16 YZF450R would’ve seemed like the stuff of science fiction back in 1956. Be sure to check Yamaha’s full ’16 line of motorcycles, quads, and side-by-sides. INFO: Yamaha, yamahamotorsports.com UNDER PRESSURE Not everybody runs a high-pressure fuel-injection system, but what are you supposed to do if you’ve got a high-performance carbureted system with a high-volume electric or mechanical fuel pump? If you feed the carburetor too much pressure you can jam the needle and seats, flood the bowl,…

editor@fourwheeler.com SPRING SEASON IN THE SOUTHEAST IS ALWAYS A GOOD TIME FOR A WHEELING ADVENTURE. THE COLD, sleet, and ice have cleared. Then comes warmer temperatures and spring rains. For us, it was time to hit the trails again and do some exploring. But this wasn’t a simple day trip but a weeklong adventure with 13 rigs that would cover nearly 800 miles. Though many in the group had traveled hundreds of miles to get here, we stamped Seneca, South Carolina, as the start of our week. The group, known as the Florida Adventure Rigs, was vehicularly diverse. Each in the group drove the entire trip and carried all the gear needed to camp each night while we ventured from place to place. On Day One, we dropped into Southeast Overland, a 4WD…

ken.brubaker@fourwheeler.com YOU’VE DONE IT AGAIN! NOT LONG AGO WE COMPILED info on 31 rigs submitted by their owners and we asked you to cast your vote for which 10 of these awesome Top Truck Challenge 2015 hopefuls would make the trek to Hollister, California, for our giant, weeklong, seven-event off-road thrashfest. You responded with an avalanche of ballots and we tallied the votes. The Top 10 votegetting rigs were notified that they had been given the nod by you and were invited to compete in the 23rd running of Top Truck Challenge, better known as TTC. As usual, we also included two alternates in case up to 2 of the 10 competitors couldn’t make it, and that’s exactly what happened this year. Of the 31 TTC hopefuls, 14 were GM vehicles, 4…