I am 61 years old, make a heck of a decent living and looking forward to a fun filled retirement in a few years pursuing my little version of whatever this is we are talking about. It was the late 1990s before I had a vague understanding as to what the internet really was. I had been exposed to it in both college and grad school a decade before but due to its complicated nature, lack of content and expense for the general public to use, I went on with my life not thinking about it. I am saying this to point out my ideas about vehicles are long held and not internet inspired, they are from living life.
I am from the "small town" rural, deep south. In the 1970s when I was in high school the "car cultures" were very important. You could tell a lot about a person just by quick glance of their vehicle. I was a guy that loved to hunt, fish and camp while doing so. I was literally obsessed with it. My and my like minded friends' vehicles all reflected this obsession. Ford Broncos were probably the most sought after vehicle by my group with certain pickups being a second. All of our vehicles had gun racks with a few guns (even in the school parking lot nobody thought anything about it) Replacement bumpers, both front and rear, and with Broncos either a factory tailgate spare tire mount or a homemade one, many of the bumpers were homemade also. The trucks also utilized some type of tire mount that got it out from under the vehicle, because if you spend a lot of time in the woods you are going to shred it going over a shed antler or limb. Winches, no question, you had one. if it was not a pickup you had a roof rack. You had to have a CB, no cell phones back then. Our group had all the vehicles that had " dual gas tanks" which was a common option on certain four wheel drives especially Broncos, I do not think I knew anyone with a Bronco that did not have that option. They were all true four wheel drive with manual locking hubs and the standard transmission was the only way to go (push starting vehicles with dead batteries, the replacement bumpers were handy for that if another vehicle was with you). Tires, big monster mud tires were a joke to us, our tires were never over 35s, they were narrower than the average off road tire and they had the heaviest load rating we could find the closest tire today would be something like a KO2. Interestingly enough the pickup guys in our group had shell top campers, which were put on for camping/hunting trips. If the auto industry ever gets around to creating a true "overland" trim (I do not know how the hell the Jeep came up with its new "Overland" trim) the dual fuel tank is an option that needs to be included. Auto shop was probably the most popular elective class taught in school throughout the south for males, so we had a lot of really knowledgeable mechanics in our group who could answer any question we had and if they could not, the teacher would so every single aspect of our vehicles, especially dealing with function was gone over amongst us before the trigger was pulled on the mod. Function and utility was all we were concerned about. I can not emphasize too much how engrained our car culture was back then. When I saw the first photo of something called an "overland" vehicle on the internet my first thoughts leaped back to my high school car culture. This naturally shaped my thoughts on "overland'.
I do not know what overland means to most, nor do I care. To me, it is a good google search term. What I do know is the origin of most of the gear. Lets talk about RTTs which is a popular debate amongst us Americans. I was familiar with them a good 35 to 40 years before I saw one knowingly first hand, I attempted to acquire one in the early 90s before the days of google and even yahoo, my attempt was frustratingly unsuccessful. They hit the commercial market in the late 1950s (from Italy of all places) targeting certain groups, one was the American traveling public, this was before the Interstate Hwy System and cross country travel could be very trying with regards to motels, open gas stations at night, along with numerous other issues, but for whatever reason they did not catch on here. The other targeted market where they did take hold was called the "Adventure sport venturer" this was the Safari Crowd and the Explorers and simply due to circumstances those residents of the Australian Outback. In the Australian outback simply going to town for supplies for many could often be an adventure in and of itself, especially back then, due to lack of infrastructure in the outback. Plus camping and just plain going "walk about" is pretty much the only recreation always close at hand for those outback residents. The Australian outback and the African bush and veldt are over run with venomous snakes, spiders and scorpions and night time is when they come out to play and they do have a habit of sneaking into tents, and anything else left out overnight on the ground for that matter, because to them it seems like a good place to find food or hide as the sun is coming up . In Africa the lions and hyenas were known to sneak in to camp at night and grab person or two for a snack from time to time. The value of RTTs was immediately obvious to these people. RTTs are fast and easy to put up or take down, they free up a lot of internal storage space for the heavier items to be stored in the vehicle, and the most obvious reason, they keep you and whatever items like shoes and socks up off the ground all night long away from all those potentially dangers animals. Space is critical because you could not have too much fuel and water. Pretty much everything else to include storage, gear or whatever (there are some exceptions, but not many) evolved out of military surplus items that were improved upon design and construction wise and jumped on by local manufacturers, heck even the term "kit" is British military slang meaning required or necessary gear. There is a reason our little niche industry is heavily influenced by South African and Australian manufacturers like no other market in America. Want to really know what overlanding is, ask a South African or Australian. Think about it, in the Australian Out Back or the bush and veldt of Africa if you choose to travel over land as opposed to ship. plane or rail, you are talking about hundreds of miles on at best, unimproved trails with no gas stations nor anything else to include potable water. If you are going to need something, no matter what it is, you best have it in your vehicle. I strongly suspect the first common usage of the term overland and overlanding happened somewhere in the African Bush or Australian Outback and meant exactly that, traveling overland which is so far removed from what any American could possibly conceive.
My very first vehicle was a 1974 Bronco with front and rear replacement bumpers with a tire mount, a winch, a roof rack , overhead mounted CB with dual foldable antennas , rear side window gun rack and the duel fuel package, I got it when I was 16 years old through saving every single penny I made and help from my parents for my birthday. It was compact, very sturdy, with the rear seat removed huge amounts of internal storage and could get anywhere a true off road built vehicle could go. They were simple in design, no luxury, easy to repair and their suspensions were built with being heavy and off road in mind this meant heavy duty leaf springs and shocks. Ford originally designed them to compete with the Jeep market offering more internal storage space. They are the very first vehicle to actually be labeled and officially called a Sports Utility Vehicle which back then, actually meant that when you know Jeeps were in a category called Sports Vehicles. To be honest, when Americans are talking about overland vehicles, they are talking about what the original concept was for Sports Utility Vehicles however demographics were changing and in order to still have SUVs they had to be changed to some kind of suburban utility vehicle.
So yeah, I like the marketing and consumerism, that grows the market and when the market grows that leads to innovation. The older you get, anything that leads to added ease, comfort and time conservation to an activity you love will have a higher economic value. As for the social media/you-tube influencer issue, what kind of person wouldn't want to make a living by doing what they love to do that is a costly recreation to the rest of world? I imagine it is not easy to be successful at it, and kudos to those that get to live the dream getting paid to do it, whatever the dream is.
