Troy Graham
Let me start out by saying: I don’t like trucks, never have.
To me, trucks always had been work vehicles first, and
pretty useless otherwise. Most of the trucks around here
are the typical big American type, and most of the 4x4s are
set up for mud. Meaning huge tires and huge motors, on huge
vehicles making huge, obnoxious noises. I guess there just
wasn’t anything about them that really appealed to me.
The whole mini-truck scene didn’t really do much for
me either. I had seen some pretty neat built-up minis,
but again, they just didn’t pique my interest much.
And while I don’t like trucks, I do like the expression of
original thought (I am an Architect/Designer). So I can
appreciate when someone engineers/builds/creates
something their own way for their truck. I also like to
observe craftsmanship at work, whether you’re talking trucks,
cars, cycles, or anything else for that matter. So I have
always kept an eye on project vehicles of any sort.
I had always been interested in sports cars, from a Triumph
TR-3A (which I completely restored from the ground up)
to 924/944 Porsches, to running ameteur rallies in a VW
Scirocco. 4x4s, who needed ‘em? They were the exact
opposite of everthing I liked about sports cars. They
were boxy, heavy, ponderous, unsophiticated, and didn’t
take corners worth a damn. (Well, neither did my TR-3, but at
least it looked and sounded cool.)
Now, I had seen Samurais running around on the road, but
pretty much passed them off as beach toys. Of course, I
had seen my fair share of Jeeps as well, but most of them
were rust buckets and all patched up. 4x4s? I’ll pass,
thank you very much.
My “First Time”...
A little history is in order here. My friend Claude’s
younger brother Jesse owned a Samurai in Florida, and had
driven it up to Indiana for a visit with the family.
While he was here, Claude “borrowed” it and after picking me up,
headed for a local motocross track for some fun. My first
impression? Noisy, rough riding, gutless, and wierd. But
after bashing around on the track for a while, then taking
a trail into the woods meant for motorcycles, I was a little
more impressed and having fun. After leaving the trail, we
stopped at a car wash to rinse off the evidence (mud) and
realized we had not even locked in the front hubs! Neat!
What are friends for?...
A few more years passed, and my friend (and neighbor) Ric was
getting real tired of driving around a full size Ford diesel
pickup and trying to get it started in the Indiana winter.
He decided to shop around for a decent used Samurai, that
would have to be a reliable dialy driver. After quite a bit
of shopping, he located a very clean,low mileage
1991 convertible and brought it over to show me. Now, even
though it was wintertime, after getting a chance to drive it
around, I realized how much fun a vehicle it was. I began
to scheme ways to “borrow” it for errands.
Shortly after Ric bought the Samurai (the same winter
actually), Claude came rolling up my drive with a
bone-stock CJ-7. It looked like a farm Jeep: red paint
(spray can touch ups), white factory plain wheels, whitewall
tires, straight six, and automatic tranny. Even though it
was winter the top was down & the doors were off. In spite
of the cold he had the most s--t eating grin on his face as
he blurted out: “What do you think?”. Now, he and I have
been friends for many years, and I have heard this from him
several times after dragging home his latest “treasure”.
So, being equally off-center, I did the right thing: I went
for a ride.
Got Sammi?...
Now, I hate to admit this, but even with the freezing temps,
I had fun. Then came the deal closer. We discovered a
gravel pit with some pretty challenging (and some
impossible) hills to play on. Also, there were some trails
in a local woods near a Game Preserve that, when muddy, were
quite challenging (and fun too) for the stock 4x4s. Yeah we
got ‘em good and stuck more than once. We also made the
rookie mistake of ‘wheelin alone, at night, in mud, and
nearly getting very stuck (a very long and cold walk home).
I soon decided I couldn’t take it anymore, it was time to get
my own.
But what to get? I decided on a Samurai for several reasons.
They were small, light, and nimble, which are some of the
traits that I liked in sports cars. They were also fairly
inexpensive to buy, maintain, and repair (or so Ithought...
more on this later). And according to all I had read and
witnessed first hand, they could go anywhere a Jeep could go.
Above it all, they were fun to drive, and being a
convertible, were great summer vehicles. So, a Samurai it was
going to be.
In this way my adventures with trail vehicles began. Later,
much later, after aquiring a little knowledge and some hard
earned experience I’ve decided to record, for the benifit of
others, the humor, aggrivation and satisfaction of building
and operating a real world off-road 4x4.
Look for the build-up under“TECH STUFF” and my
trail experiences under “STORIES”
Thanks for visiting our web-site, Troy Graham
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