Gear Haulers

You may not know this, but my friends and I have this tendency to make videos.  With this comes a large need to transport video gear.  Some of this gear is very large.  For this reason, I've been thinking about vehicles with large cargo areas.  I am going to layout my pros and cons of the different vehicles I've been thinking about recently.

#1.  The '92-'96 Buick Roadmaster.

What a beast!

 This car is great because it has a full frame, tons of cargo room, a V8, and it's rear wheel drive!   That being said it has a V8, and it HUGE!!!  Gas mileage would be nice, so I decided to give it the boot.

#2.  The '00-'03 Ford Taurus Wagon

Can you believe there's no good pics of cool looking Taurus wagons?!?

I know, right?!

Having used many Tauri in the past (and driving one as my current and previous vehicle), I know these things will last pretty well and have decent space in the back.  They even get decent mileage, on the highway.  Given the following options, I've decided that this isn't quite as capable, although it may have more cargo room.

#3. The '83-'92 Ford Ranger

This pic is ripper from a Craigslist ad, so please forgive its four panel nature.

I like the ground clearance and the 4x4 capability of the Ranger.  I really want to get one with the flatbed and rig up a harness for someone to be tied to the bed and shoot off the back.  However, the bed is small and uncovered, and I don't think it would fit the things I want to haul all that well.  This would definitely be an awesome secondary rig for shooting on the road though!

#4.  The '84-01 Jeep Cherokee 2-door

I used to drive a 4-door that looked just like this with slightly different rims.

This Jeep is simultaneously high off the ground and low to it as well.  This would be another great vehicle to sit in the back and shoot from while driving (actually, all of these would be good for that).  The only problem I have with this vehicle is that the cargo area is kind of small for what you'd be expecting.  Before you complain about the fact it's a 2-door, let me explain my choice.  The 2-door is the same size as the 4, but it has different doors.  Since the back seat is useless anyways and the front doors were a little short, I decided this would be a better option to get as a second Jeep (whenever that happens) compared to a 4-door like I used to drive.  This brings us to...

#5.  The '93-'98 Jeep Grand Cherokee

This just screams, "Make me muddy!"

This is a slightly larger form of the previous Jeep, but it still has the same straight 6 engine as the regular Cherokee, so it gets decent mileage.  I've driven my sister-in-law's Grand Cherokee, and I like the way it drove on my, albeit short, test run.  Having dealt with that Grand Cherokee and loading sound equipment into the two second generation Grand Cherokees my brother has owned, I am slightly hesitant that the cargo area is similar to the smaller Cherokee; it looks bigger than it really is.  Since I don't want to buy a trailer, I move to another vehicle.

#6.  The '95-'03 Subaru Impreza wagon

If cars were girls, this would be a cheap whore.

These Imprezas are dang good lookin', have all wheel drive, and have peppy motors.  Then they made them into wagons, and the world was a better place to live in.  As much as I would love to have one of these to move my stuff in, I think it falls into the same category as the Jeeps.  I drove an '02 sedan while I had the Jeep, and they felt about the same size on the road.  Even the wheelbase felt very close to the same size.  My Jeep definitely had more torque than the Impreza's little 2.0L though.  If this doesn't work, why not go bigger?

#7.  The Subaru Legacy Outback

The slightly classier escort.

These mid-to-full-size wagons are quite roomy inside, and they have the same engine and all wheel drive system as the Impreza!  Since I can't seem to be happy with what I've found with any of these, I'll tell you why this doesn't make the cut.  These cars seem to be similarly sized to the Ford Taurus wagon, so I think the space is good but not great.  Thus, all my thoughts and efforts have culminated in the last vehicle of this overly long post!

#8.  The Subaru Forester

Certainly not the prettiest car in the group...

This Franken-crossover has the best of all of these cars.  It has the engine and all wheel drive of the other Subies, the higher roofline that's reminiscent of the Jeeps, and the low floor of the Taurus, which should give it the capacity of the Roadmaster.  This car seems to be about the same size classification of the Outback/Legacy, and its fold down second row seats make for a large area to put all kinds of stuff.  I really think this is a good call for moving video shooting equipment, unless you want to buy a trailer... which I don't.

I will proceed to make an entire post on how I would make this car super awesome and probably no longer advantageous to using for video equipment hauling anymore.