Share pics and stories of your car, crossover or mini-van off-pavement adventures!

[Cee-Jay]

There are plenty of great reasons to use a truck or stout sport utility vehicle for backcountry adventures. That being said, cars can get one to a lot of great places if driven carefully and many crossover SUVs are quite capable. Heck, what I saw driving on horrendous West Africa roads was mostly old beat up Citroen station wagons and an array of Japanese and Korean small sedans (like Corollas) and micro vans (like the VanWagon). And here are two guys that enjoyed a nice little trip through the Death Valley backcountry in a stock Infiniti FX35.

So please share pics and stories of your car, crossover, station wagon or mini-van based off-pavement adventures, whether stock or modified.

Thanks,

Cee-Jay

PS: For the purposes of this thread, a crossover SUV is a vehicle built on a car or car-like platform (unibody, independent suspension, handling tuned for on road use, probably a rear hatchback) but with some truck and SUV-like features (AWD or 4WD, higher ground clearance). It probably doesn't have true 4WD with a manual transfer case and low gearing, though there are exceptions. Wikipedia has a decent list of examples that I mostly agree with here.

 

[haven]

You mean like when a couple of crazy people drove an ex-Las Vegas Lincoln Town Car limo from London to Timbuktu, Mali?

http://www.expeditionportal.com/for...s-the-Sahara-desert-in-a-88-Lincoln-Limousine

 

[haven]

Another of my favorites: Trevor and Melodie Simons decided to pack up their one year old baby, and drive from London to their home to Australia. They bought an old VW camper, and proceeded to drive for seven months through Europe, Turkey, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakstan, Kirghistan, China, Laos, Thailand and Malaysia. This is in 1998, well before GPS and Internet cafes. Cell phones were unusual in developed countries. Even reliable maps were hard to find.

http://travelmag.co.uk/?p=178

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/721544/London-to-Sydney-A-tale-of-two-expeditions.html

 

[haven]

Here's another: In 2011, a father and son decide to drive from their home in Portugal around the edge of the African continent. They buy an old Renault 4 door sedan that had spent the last year abandoned in a farmer's field. Then they drive through 26 countries in Africa during a six month adventure.

http://www.not2latetrip.com/

 

[haven]

One more: An Iraq War vet, struggling to make sense of his life, decides to drive from Los Angeles to Ushuaia. He buys a 1980 Mercedes 300SD, and points the hood south.

http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/22808-Elliott-Kim-s-Drive-to-South-America
http://www.drivetosouthamerica.com/index.html

 

[Cee-Jay]

Wow haven, those are each extraordinary and fantastic. What an amazing time in history we live in, a time in which millions of us have the luxury to embark on such journeys.

Here's my favorite picture from the Let's see your expedition rigs! thread over at www.pirate4x4.com:



Posted by jalbrecht42, it is a 1983 Toyota Camry allegedly somewhere in Alaska on its way up to the Arctic Circle... packed with 5 people! Later in the same thread there's a picture or two of a stock 1999 Nissan Maxima at the La Mosca Lookout in New Mexico (posted by jolane).

I'd love to see some Subaru GL (esp. 2nd Gen 3-door hatchbacks) and Astro/Safari van pictures and maybe some less common rides like the AMC Eagleand, heck, how about a Ford LTD Country Squire, Dodge Omni GLH, or Merkur XR4Ti? I like all kinds of rides so please keep 'em coming people!:smiley_drive:

 

[Jrally]

I take my slightly ;-) modified '84 Celica just about where ever I want to go. It can climb plenty rough rocky trails, speed down smooth dirt roads and putt down the highway, all like it was out for a Sunday drive.

There are several of my trip write-ups with pictures on here, as well as a comprehesive set of build threads over at Celica-GTS foum.

-Jon

 

[Cee-Jay]

Wow Jon! Your rig is AWESOME! Thanks for posting those pics... I'll definitely be checking out your build thread and some of your trip posts.

Here are a few more nice rides. I found these Subaru Legacy SUS' here and here:



And these Treser Audi Hunters were found here and here:

 

[iMTB]

Fun stuff:

 

[iMTB]

http://forums.vwvortex.com/showthread.php?5014051-Lifted-Subaru-s-DIR-or-DIW

 

[bloodycape]

I take my slightly ;-) modified '84 Celica just about where ever I want to go. It can climb plenty rough rocky trails, speed down smooth dirt roads and putt down the highway, all like it was out for a Sunday drive.
There are several of my trip write-ups with pictures on here, as well as a comprehesive set of build threads over at Celica-GTS foum.

-Jon

I didn't see it mentioned, but did you do the awd swap from the GT-Four Celica or are you stock?

 

[Jrally]

My Celica year, was before the body/chassis change to mostly fwd. The All-trac and GT4 Celicas are based on the fwd chassis. '85 on back, they where all front engine, rwd cars, loosely based on the truck drivetrains. The engine is a 22rec (2.4L OHC 8v), mated to the W58 tranny which was used for the Celicas, the Supras and the 2wd and 4wd pick-ups. The original axle is what fell short, it was basically shared with the Corolla, 6.7" ring gear. The first rear axle I built was a 7.1" ring gear axle out of a Cressida wagon. This new axle, 7.5" ring gear, will be much stronger and the parts easly found, since it's the same as the light duty 2wd pick-ups.

-Jon

 

[bloodycape]

I knew that they moved to fwd in like 86, but didn't realize the rwd models were sort of truck based, nor that all-trac models were not available on the rwd cars. Have you thought about going fully 4wd/awd?

 

[Cee-Jay]

iMTB, thanks for that excellent Subaru candy! Some of them appear to be nicely rigged up for overland adventures:


Others in that thread appear more for wheelin', but are still awesome:


I look forward to continued progress on the Subaru builds here at Expedition Forum.

This Porsche Type 597 Jagdwagen is probably too off-road capable in stock form to meet my intention with this thread, but it is cool and it is car-like so here's a picture:


Getting back to more standard sedans, crossover SUVs, minivans and the like... Popular Mechanics put seven crossover SUVs through an off-road sand dune test, which you can read about here. Interestingly, they evaluated the Durango as the best off-road performer.

 

[Jrally]

I have thought about it many times. But where I live, in the desert SW, it just isn't needed enough to warrant the hassle of building something so far from what it was meant to be. I would literally have to reinvent every piece, at least to make it to my satisfaction. The car has no chassis, it's a unibody, so hanging a transfer case under it, plus a front diff, is just too much work for a toy right now. If I was to do it though, I've already researched most of the parts for it, divorced TC, Nissan front diff, maybe front hubs from a Kia Sportage or Suzuki something or other.

-Jon