My buddy Neil always says, “At some point, you always come back to where you started.” A few days after I bought my Jeep Cherokee, I was on my way to have a beer with him and check out the addition he’s putting on his place. I started thinking about all the different things I’d driven down that same stretch of road over the years – a 78 F-100, an 87 Silverado, a 72 Chevelle, an 05 Corolla, even my parents’ stuff when my junk was out of commission.

Then I remembered what I was driving 10 years ago when we first started hanging out. I still had my “first car”, an 85 S-10 4×4. I learned a hell of a lot with that old rig and did a little bit of everything to it. It had over $6,000 worth of upgrades and modifications when I sold it. I had swapped out the anemic 2.8L for a 3.4L crate engine, had the transmission rebuilt with a shift kit, installed a transmission cooler, put a 2″ StupidLift on it, etc.

I came out of my daydream fog and started looking around in the XJ. I realized it was about the same size inside as my S-10. Then my head was flooded with old S-10 tech info about axles swaps (from Jeeps), engine swaps (from full-size Chevys), etc. I realized that my 2000 XJ, with solid front axle, stronger rear axle, smooth suspension, powerful engine and massive aftermarket support is a lot like what I wanted my old S-10 to be. After going to full-sizes then out of a 4×4 all together into an import sedan, I’ve come full circle, right back where I started, sort of.

With the thought of all of this floating in my head the next morning, I pulled up at work next to my former Corolla, a 4-door people hauler, which I sold to my buddy Foy and I understood that the XJ is the S-10 I wanted to have blended together with the car I did have.  4 doors, 4×4, able to tow the ATVs, a reasonable amount of ground clearance (a good thing to have with Olde Towne’s propensity to flood), 18 mpg and soon to have a rear locker and a spare set of steel rims with mud tires on them for trail rides.

I had planned to leave it completely stock and keep the off road excursions down to sand but I love being out in the woods more than I love driving something clean with straight body panels.  The local Jeep community, that has spurned me for the last decade or more for having Chevys, now greets me with open arms.  While I do sort of feel like a hypocrite, they are very active in taking off road excursions and welcome stock vehicles.  Hopefully I’ll have some cool pictures and stories soon!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009 at 4:36 pm and is filed under 4x4s, Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.