What's a classic four wheel drive vehicle worth, and for that matter, should it be worth as much as a super car? That's a tough question when you consider all the things a super car can do, things like going fast and.. well, that's pretty much it. When it comes to classic iron four wheel drive trucks and SUV's, we think sometimes they should be worth at least that much!

We were recently invited to the premiere of the new Hot Wheels film, 'World's Best Driver', to check out some of the wild and custom off-road vehicles they built for their new flick. The movie pits some of the worlds best and most talented drivers from all facets of motor sports against each other in a head to head competition that bridges the gap between childhood fantasy and real world racing.

"Are you sure?" Tim Potter asked when we flagged him down and requested to take some photos of his 1980 International Scout II. Like the maestro who envisions his piece de resistance, Tim knows what potential still lies in his Scout. We just knew we liked what we saw and wanted it in our pages.

We could have filed the news that vintage SUVs are growing in popularity under the “tell us something we don’t know” department, because we’re obviously big fans of old-school utes around here. But it’s always nice to know the rest of the world is starting to pay attention, too.

Performance enthusiasts are often perfectionists by nature. No build is ever finished or good enough. No adventure is ever tough or epic enough. On one hand, striving for perfection means that when you finally get something done, its done to the nth degree. On the other hand, theres a lot of time that goes by while youre making sure things measure up.

Butch Cassidys mother, Ann Gillies, was born in Scotland. At the age of 9, her father put his family on a ship and immigrated to the United States. From Boston, the Gillies family traveled west on a train to the end of the tracks in Iowa City, Iowa. In the March issue of this magazine, we followed the trail they used to cross Iowa and reach the settlement called Winter Quarters. They were members of the Mormon Church and were on their way to the Salt Lake Valley.

We idled our way through tall trees that were still full of green in the early fall before the temperatures started to drop drastically. The forest laid before us scenic views and interesting dirt routes. The Uwharrie National Forest is a 51,000-acre span of greenery in central North Carolina and is named for the Uwharrie Mountains that protrude from the earth's surface here.

Working inside sales at GenRight Off Road gives longtime off-roader Dave Watts an advantage over most of us. He has easy access to some of the best Jeep parts available plus colleagues and friends who 'wheel almost every day, giving Dave the opportunity to use his TJ often.

We left Phoenix on a warm spring weekend and headed east through the historic town of Miami, Arizona. This area has long been copper-rich country and the commercial mine operation here has a storied past that extends back to 1915. We traveled past the town and the open pit mine areas to Highway 188 North. We were headed into the Sierra Ancha area, a high-desert part of the state that is extremely rugged.

“Hey, look at that road. Is it worth taking?” I can answer that question. It always is. It doesn’t matter if the road is graded, two-track, or a trail; if it stretches off into the distance, drops into a canyon, goes over a mountain, or gets lost in trees or rocks ahead, it beckons the backcountry explorer with a siren song that’s impossible to ignore. Yes, even graded, easy roads are worth taking. You never know where that road will lead.

We have followed the Mormon Trail from Nauvoo, Illinois, to Winter Quarters, Nebraska, in the past two issues of this magazine. In 1846, Brigham Young and his followers used that part of the trail while on their way to settle the Salt Lake Valley in Utah. They chose to spend the winter in Winter Quarters and finish their journey in 1847. The trail continued to be used in following years by others who traveled to the valley. By 1856, the trail was well defined and a timetable for travel was established using Winter Quarters as a starting point. Four groups chose to ignore the warnings of others who said it was too late in the year to continue. Those four groups became a part of what history has recorded as the Handcart Disaster of 1856. Butch Cassidy’s grandparents and the girl who eventually became his mother were in one of those groups. This story covers their arrival in the U.S. and their journey to Winter Quarters.

Maybe you don’t know Tom Wood personally, but you know his products. As the owner of Tom Wood’s Custom Driveshafts, he has an international reputation for building quality driveshafts and drivetrain parts. When he’s not building driveshafts, Tom likes to take one of his Jeeps, such as his 1979 CJ7, into the backcountry.

We really like the two-door Jeep Wrangler JK. With its size and minimal entry points, it is as close as you can get to a brand-new, traditionally styled Jeep. The Wrangler Unlimited is no slouch, of course. It’s just too darn big sometimes to fit the notches and trails that our TJ liked so much—the same ones that our YJ liked before that and our CJ before that. The true JK, the two-door version, still fits in just like all of the models before it did. With so many four-door JKs on the trail, it’s often a rare sight to see a two-door. That’s why we jumped at the opportunity to take a closer look at Mike Glaubach’s 2008 model.

We saw the JK and it looked good. That’s how we first ran across Road Race Motorsports and its 2013 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Rubicon. But what the heck was a shop that specialized in building sport compact and rally race cars and designing bolt-on upgrade parts for the same doing building a Jeep? After speaking with owner Rob Tallini and Johnny Rocha, director of 4x4 operations at Road Race Motorsports, we got our answer. The market was there and so was the crossover of its research and development. They built race cars that found the podium almost every time they spun the track, so why not apply all that knowledge to the ever-growing 4x4 market, particularly the JK?

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4Wheel Drive & Sport Utility Magazine
Attn: Christian Lee
1733 Alton Parkway, Ste. 100
Irvine, CA 92606
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Nemesis Dual Battery Tray
Dual battery systems offer improved electrical power for winches and other accessories, not to mention the peace of mind that comes from having more than one way to power your starter in the field. At the same time, it can be tough to find the space for a second battery and tougher yet to devise a clean, secure way to mount it. Chalk it up to the Jeep JK’s popularity: Nemesis Industries has devised a dual battery mount for the ’07-to-present JK models. Batteries not included.

There’s so much emphasis on GPS navigation these days that some among us seem scared to go buy a loaf of bread without TomTom leading the way and OnStar watching from above.

The 2012 model year is the last for GM’s 355 pickup, the Chevrolet Colorado, and GMC Canyon. The 355 burst onto the scene in 2004, replacing the Chevrolet S-10 and GMC Sonoma pickups. The Colorado and Canyon pickups improved greatly from 2004 to 2012. One of the biggest improvements was the 5.3L aluminum-block Gen IV V-8 that became available starting in the 2009 model year. V-8 power in a lightweight truck brings a smile to our faces every time the accelerator is mashed.

It’s easy to imagine an epic adventure, one that includes everything that’s been brewing on your to-do list for years. However, if that epic adventure ends with an empty bank account, you’ll be hard-pressed to do anything similar for a long, long time. We don’t know about you, but we need regular doses of dirt. We’ve found after lots of unscientific study that a steady dirt diet makes for a healthier off-roader. Binging and purging? No thanks.

Sometimes you need a winch; sometimes you don't. You're likely more than pleased to see it mounted in a heavy winch bumper at the front of your rig whilst tackling your favorite trail. But, maybe not so much during the daily commute when you're burning through fuel that costs $4.50 a gallon and knowing well that you are constantly carting around an extra few hundred pounds of winch and bumper that is contributing greatly to your crappy fuel economy.

The first story in this series began in Nauvoo, Illinois, and followed backcountry roads 167 miles to Garden Grove, Iowa (see the Jan. ’13 issue of this magazine). This story picks up the trail in Garden Grove and continues on backcountry roads across Iowa to Winter Quarters, Nebraska, where Mormon pioneers spent the winter of 1846 into 1847. Out of the 155 miles we traveled for this section, approximately 100 miles were on unpaved roads.

It’s amazing how long it can take to scratch a particular itch. The Anza Borrego mud caves came onto my proverbial radar screen about a decade ago while reading a hiking and exploring Web page.

The planned trip was put on the backburner for many reasons, but one was that the mud caves are in a corner of the Anza Borrego Desert State Park that I don’t often visit. It takes longer to get to and it’s more remote once you show up. Other destinations were easier propositions.

Back in 1976, I met two freshly minted second lieutenants who had just graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy. As soon as they were commissioned, these two had done what most of us did, which was to purchase a new vehicle. One had a new Triumph TR6 and the other owned a sparkling Fiat 126 Spider convertible. I was driving a Jeep CJ5 with a 304 V-8.

Our weekend adventure to the Smiley Rock trail was to take us into the Prescott National Forest, nearly the dead center of Arizona. Here we would find both scenic 'wheeling and intriguing history from the early days of the Wild West.

Beep, Beep. Ever since 1948, when Chuck Jones created the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote for Warner Brothers, the familiar sound of the Road Runner has been heard coming from televisions, movies, and … Plymouth Road Runners. When Mark Turner, CEO of Daystar, started to build his '11 JK Wrangler, he knew it was going to be fast and live in the desert. What better name to hang on it than Road Runner?