Hunting & Fishing Best Off-Road 4x4

[The King]

Surprised there's no love in this thread for 2nd gen Rams, seeing how they're the best truck ever made and what not.

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Everyone has a different opinion of what off-road means.

I did. watch a guy with that style ram come down a trail we had just rocked in my Gwagen. He had a ridiculous build - 54” tires 10ft lift et al.

He hit the switchback and his bed snapped off and went one way and his cab the other.

I’ll see if I can find the pics.

 

[Jim Out]

Yes to Escalator. No spotter, just my 13 yo daughter in the passenger seat. It is locked in the rear. Had it all to ourselves that day. Did not and have never done Mickey's Hot Tub. Hard pass for me even w/ my TJ.

Been to Moab many times.

Here's my TJ on Proving Grounds in 05 before they closed it. This was filming for 4WheelerTV. It's the Easter Jeep Safari episode, second segment. It aired Late Spring early Summer of 05. You can find it on MotorTrend Television if you have the subscription.

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PS. You're boy center left looks like he might be rested to lowlight.

Upper Proving Ground........aaaah yes

We were up there in 2003 testing a new Twisted Customs (Jason Paulie) buggy before the ARCA comp.

I was with my "hillbilly-drunk furniture store owner" (he didn't attend meetings so I'm not sure of the appropriate nomenclature, alcoholic, now former?) buddy from Asheville, NC......shine may have been involved......

Anyway, the only person who got good video of the "spectacle" was an individual who I'll refer to as "Sweet-Tea"....

It was one amazing buggy, I would say Jason's buggies (Twisted Customs) were the best of the best at the time Campbell's welds didn't work that great, there weren't many Avalanche Snipers, The Scorpion's suspension was unique but not necessarily desirable and Randy Rodd hadn't perfected Jimmy's Buggies.

To say the least it was quite an upgrade from the homebuilt TubeShark progression it replaced .......well it was originally a super clean FJ45 when we first met at the first Hammers Warn event we were both driving in back in 1999.

So hillbilly boy.....let's call him, I don't know, what rhymes with Jason and implies "squirreliness"? Squaison?

Squaison pulls up to the bottom of the ledge way to the right side and bumps it to feel up the first ledge.

In so doing it gets kind of light and funny feeling (apparently, judging from the expression on his face), Sweet-Tea moves in closer to get better video while my wife stands back with her camera and uses the zoom.

Squaison then bumps into reverse to settle the rig down, it's nice to have the shifter gates cut away so you can save a roll, this makes even more room for Sweet-Tea to squeeze in a little closer.

That's when Squaison realizes that he may have been a little too liberal with the go pedal in the shift to reverse as his passenger rear tire starts climbing up the wall.....about 4 feet or so.

Being a "professional driver on a closed course" that's where his "training kicked in" (stop me if this is sounding like a Tex Grebner narrative) and so he dumps that puppy back into what I presume must have been first IIRC (turbo 400 reverse manual valve body).....

At that point he mashes the gas, you know, "when in doubt, throttle out".....

That brand new small block chevy made the most beautiful screaming roar in the head of that little canyon accentuating the peaceful quiet of an early morning in Moab.....

It was about that time that Sweet-Tea realized that the perfect spot to shoot video when a vehicle is reversing up a vertical wall by mistake......is absolutely NOT the perfect spot to shoot video if the vehicle is applying around 500hp in a forward gear...

In true Elvis style, Sweet-Tea left the building......post haste..... exit stage left even .... leaving behind his camera and what appeared to some sort of a brown and yellowish mist of what may have been evacuating bodily fluids.....

What he did capture as he was running away was far and beyond anything I had ever seen before, I must humbly say my range of experience is quite a bit broader than most....sort of like the producers of Jackass....but no sir, I never saw anything like that before.

Squaison had somehow launched himself up the first bump and partway up the first ledge before driving the passenger front up the right side wall shooting him up and backwards in a perfect backflip....when he somehow landed the first flip the motor was bouncing off the rev limiter and catapulted him into another backflip this time with a twist landing him facing away from and 180* from facing up the obstacle.

It was probably a good thing that white liquor or something made them both move like lightning........aaah hillbillys and their folksy ways with them thar motor vehicles....

Sweet-Tea stopped leaking fluids and Squaison somehow removed the race seat from wherever it had been sucked by a force greater than the nearest black hole.....

....then we did it right and had a great time at the ARCA race

I don't recall where we placed, but I mainly went to drink and heckle anyway, or as Sonny Honneger put it in Farmington.....It waas a goodt day, I din't break anyting.....

I had the '84 4-runner then, it's still a wadded up beercan but a 4-runner and licensed insured and tagged for the street the windshield is sort of "optional" but it has working A/C and wipers, eye protection required......

My Jimmy's 4x4 buggy on Sutherland Trail, the powerline to the back side of Mt. Lemmon

eta: I can't figure out how to post my backflip on Anniahillator in Table mesa, can't upload the video

here's one of the weirdest trails I've run, from Superior, AZ with Andrew's rig

 

[Odysseus1911]

Everyone has a different opinion of what off-road means.

I did. watch a guy with that style ram come down a trail we had just rocked in my Gwagen. He had a ridiculous build - 54” tires 10ft lift et al.

He hit the switchback and his bed snapped off and went one way and his cab the other.

I’ll see if I can find the pics.

I agree that everyone has their own definition of off road. My definition would basically be anything you might reasonably expect a stock 4x4 to be able to handle without breaking, and maybe a bit more depending on the vehicle.

Although, to be fair, 2nd gens are kind of the king of the trailer park now, so probably more than with other makes and models you see poorly designed back yard monster truck builds and bubba-fied swamp boggers that are destined for embarrasing equipment breakages.

In stock trim I think they're an outstanding vehicle for most offroading (not rock crawling or baja racing, but pretty much anything short of that). In 2001 or 2002, I managed to get my bone stock '98 Ram to the top of a climb that none of the other 4x4 pickups with us (a couple Fords and several Chevy's) and none of the SUVs could make. Only the Jeep Wrangler joined me at the top.

 

[beetroot]

Easy choice.
TD5 Discovery 2.