beauty pictures
! those rigs are much more capable than much of the offroad community seems to give them credit for, aside from acknowledging them as hard to roll. looks like you guys have definitely used them as intended...i dig the reaper shot, few vehicles could do that...period. certainly even fewer stock or near-stock vehicles.
now and then, it's possible to pick up a mil surplus hmmwv for 30-40k. we had one at a previous employer with the hutch on the back, stamped "military vehicle dot exempt" and a bunch of other stuff...purchase price at 35k+change, and with a price like that it's definately easier to start the mods. didn't move too quick tho...needed a tuneup and some love in general. i always wished i could have bought it (the hmmwv, not the hutch etc) off the company...they really needed something else, but wanted the truck for trade shows and impressing suits. i think post military the only good times it saw were the times i and another employee (she and her husband owned a 12v civ version of the same truck) took the "back roads" on various errands...probably better the boss never found out from either of us where that truck had been, what with his c4i setup in the back
.
one of my favorite moments with that truck centered around the hummer dealership off i-70 in west denver...they also sell caddies and jeeps, but the majority of hummers i've seen in the front range have been shiny and clean...just luxury vehicles, not really selling to an offroad market. their service floor is shiny, bright white tile...small tile...everyone wearing suits and no sign of anyone with grease on their hands. the vehicles on the service floor are always beautiful caddies, clean jeeps, and cleaner hummers...and up i drive in cargos and a tshirt, with a carc'd usmc surplus hmmwv in standard camo with a hutch and a grip full of aerials. i think the service manager pooped a little. 12k$ of other people's money later, they assured me they'd send a valet to retrieve my vehicle (better said with a dry tone and slight upward tilt of the nose
). fifteen minutes later i'm still waiting, and ask the rather agitated service manager where on earth they parked my truck because i'm going to get it myself...he points, i think he was glad i was out of his hair, and i walk over to find a pair of confused, worried kids looking at the console and the key, trying to figure out how to turn it over. they thought the start lever and light box were pretty cool and told me about a close-by spot to get it dirty...a couple hours later and i was headed back towards boulder...driving that truck through the democratic people's republic of boulder, i thought i was gonna get pelted with organic tomatos
. whew
.
too bad theyre usually soooo expensive
. i've only seen one in the dirt in person, dunno if it was surplus, but it was a slantback.
-sean
