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.

Best Movie Muscle Cars

I saw a video today, and it got me thinking about what would be the best movie muscle car.
Here's the video:



Now granted, this video doesn't point to either one being better, but I don't think it's a fair fight either. Let me explain.


The majority of this race is held on dirt and gravel. The spongier, heavier General Lee will do better on this because its loose suspension will adapt quicker, and the extra weight will help it dig in for better grip. Also, powersliding is key.


The Trans Am is nearly a decade newer and was built tighter with sway bars to minimize body roll and suspension travel, mastering windy roads. The tire choice also plays a decent role in this rivalry. If there were more highway in this race, the Trans Am would've come out on top.

This made me wonder what would be the best movie muscle car for all-around performance. I need to put some limitations on this though. We'll say classic muscle car '64-'85 in a movie from '64-'90.

Now I've been thinking about this for a couple days, and I had a hard time coming up with anything that could beat my choice. I think that the '72 Trans Am from "Thunderbolt and Lightfoot" (with Jeff Bridges and Clint Eastwood, 1974) wins the best movie car title. It has the good handling you get with a 2nd gen T/A, great looks, and a 455 V8 pushing you through the turns (a little sideways never hurts). Granted, his off-road excursion ripped a good deal of the plastic or rubber body cladding off, but that didn't really affect the car at all. That car is pretty amazing, and therefore is my pick.

Teenage Stick Shifts

So I was on Youtube tonight, and I ran across the ever-present "teaching (insert normally bad driver here) to drive a stick" video, which got me thinking...

You always see some guy video taping his girlfriend "learning" how to drive stick. I think when I have kids, if I have a daughter, I'm going to teach her all the ins and outs of driving stick along with performance/stunt maneuvers. Then when some jerk thinks he's going to get a funny video of her driving a stick (because she'll keep up the ruse that she doesn't know), She'll kill it a couple of time and then bust out some awesome J-turns, powerslides, burnouts, and donuts. That would achieve three things: be awesome, make for an epic Youtube viral video, and show the punk kid to have some respect for the females. Have fun buying tires, you prick!

I think I'd teach the same things to my future son too. Only slower, taking many more weeks to show him the awesomeness of driving. In his car. Which would have a wheezy, dead V8.

That's just my thoughts...

Jeep Cherokee: 6-Month Review

Ok, so I've been driving my '96 Cherokee Country for 6 months, and I've been having some thoughts about it, overall. There are some small things that are kind of a nagging nuisance for everyday use, and there are some bigger issues that I don't like from a broader stance.

The smaller stuff isn't too bad, but could become more annoying during long-term use. The first thing you'll notice when using a Cherokee like this is that the door isn't long enough to not hit your back on the B-pillar (more noticeable when exiting), and the seat is too high. I've got the manual seats, so it's definitely a mounting height issue. The roof is pretty close to your head, and I frequently hit my head on the top of the door frame when I get out. Plus, my leg always hits the wheel if I leave it in a comfortable driving position, and I don't even have it down far! You shouldn't have to constantly move the steering wheel to get in or out of your car; it's not good for the wiring.

Other small issues would include things like no leg-room in the back seat, u-joints crawling over themselves if you turn too tight, and the fact that I bought this to haul drums and be fun to drive, but the back end is completely full when I put my drums in where I could fit everything just fine in the trunk of my Vic. And I never thought I'd ever say this, especially at this point in my vehicular life, but this Jeep has too much torque to be useful. In almost any wet situation, I'll lose traction off a red light and swing the back end out with minimal pedal. Granted, it is most likely that I have junky, cheap tires, but there's no excuse for that in non-standing water.

Those are the small issues, now on to the bigger ones. This thing rusts hardcore. Holy crap, does this thing rust! I honestly need an entire new floor, new rockers, sections of my roof, and half my exhaust just dropped off on the freeway! This thing is fun to drive on the highway, and I'm sure if I had the chance to go off-road, it'd be a blast, but I doubt it'll hold up to anything I would want to do with it. Somebody even kicked a hole in my floor on the passenger side! It seems like the drivetrain and suspension are durable, but all the bits holding them in place are going to rust in half and drop them all over everywhere. Not a fan.

I just can't get a handle on this thing. I got used to my Vic within the first month or two, but this thing has completely wrecked my parallel parking ability. I was talking to somebody online, and they made a very true statement, "The XJ [(Cherokee)] gets to be a bit of a handful over 60, and the Vic can do 85 without even noticing." I think this would be a ton of fun and seriously maneuverable off-road, but I'm not as happy driving it as a daily driver as I was in my Vic. I feel more comfortable, confident, and about 3-times as happy in my Vic. Granted, the mileage is better in my Jeep, it's more versatile, and it fits in smaller parking spots, but I'm semi-seriously considering selling it and using my Vic again (since no one seems to want to buy it).

You know, I think I like the idea of a little car with tons of power, and that goes with off-roaders too, just add good articulation and easy maneuverability, but as far as the application of that principle goes, I really like full-size, full-frame vehicles with big, brawny V8's with loud pipes. Take my Cherokee and give my an F-250 or a Raptor.

I know I said I was gonna do a build up on my Jeep, but I have no money, and this one is going to be way too much work. I think, if I can get a job for next semester that pays decently, I'm gonna sell the Jeep and fix my Vic. My sister-in-law has a '98 Cherokee, though, and we could do the same build on hers in the future. There are still options.