Long Ago.... Before They Had Pigs (1 Viewer)

[RUSH55]

This is a little different - probably should be in the “chat” section, but I kinda prefer chatting with guys here.

So everyone here more than likely has a history with 4wd vehicles going way back. There’s a few guys here who were lucky to have parents that owned 55’s and they rode around in them as kids - even maybe OWN the one their parents owned back in the day.
I wasn’t quite that lucky, but was lucky to have been around some pretty sweet 4x’s from some other makes pretty much since I was born.

Found several photos going through some boxes which gave in to the idea of doing a thread based on this. Lots of stories behind these rigs, I’ll touch on a couple.

The first 4wd of my childhood was my Dad’s 1956 GMC with the NAPCO conversion. Best pictures I can find also have me on the back of a horse, and riding a bike (late 70’s, early 80’s).

At some point in the early 80’s, my Dad traded the 56 for a 1947 Willy’s Jeep, which my Dad recalls as being one of his biggest vehicle mistakes, as the GMC was solid, and the Willy’s was a piece of sh*t. From my recollection, I think the guy he traded with was a friend of some sort of my Mom’s father, and so there may have been some leverage there, for what reason, I do not know. The Willy’s had some chunks of 2x4 lumber between the body mounts to act as a body lift, someone had cobbled up some booger-weld mounts and tossed a 327 Chevrolet engine in it, and a plethora of unknown mods that I’m sure we would all cringe at. I mean, just look at that hideous front bumper. IIRC, the cross bars above the pipes were solid-stock.
Me holding my cousin in the foreground.

 

[RUSH55]

To offset the bad decision trading off the GMC, my Dad bought a late 60’s Scout 800 with a 260 Ford conversion, which must have been done better than the 327 in the Willy’s because I never heard him complain about the Scout. Nonetheless, one of the best pics of the Scout is him falling into the engine bay doing who knows what.

 

[RUSH55]

Here’s my Dad looking not so happy about having to work on the Willy’s

 

[RUSH55]

Anyways, he had that Scout until the mid-80’s sometime then sold it and bought a 1980 Ford F-150 (which I didn’t pull any pics of).
My Mom sold her 1973 F-100 and bought one of the last of what I would consider a vintage 4wd, a 1979 Bronco. She had that throughout the time I went through HS. Got to drive it several times. Man, I wanted that thing so bad I cried when she sold it. Couldn’t come up with the money she needed for it. Oh well. In 1995 my Dad bought the Cruiser I came to have and the rest is history.

NEXT!

 

[gonzopancho]

Dad never had much good to say about 4x4, said it was a good way to get stuck worse. Long series of Chevy (2wd) pickups though, most of them with big blocks.

I had a scoutmaster who had a 75 FJ40 in freeborn red. That’s the first landcruiser I remember.

Friend in high school (RIP) had a mid-60s suburban 4x4 with a straight six. We raised some hell in that truck around Las Vegas in the late 1970s. I’ll just say that amyl nitrate and blasting caps could be purchased at the feed store.

I owned a lifted 76 Chevy shortbed with a 454 and a 4-speed for a while 90-92. It was my brother’s before I owned it. We took it out for a drive about 30 minutes before I got married in April 1990. We were late getting back. She wasn’t happy.

She owned a 89 extracab Hilux SR5 4x4 pickup in red. It was her first new car. She’d wanted a fj62, and red wasn’t her first choice of color, but couldn’t afford it then, but she has one now.

We bought a Grand Cherokee in 1996. Dumb. Spotted the 74 FJ40 in a parking lot Spokane around 2002 or 2003. Left the J**p in Spokane with a bartender.

 

[RUSH55]

Couple more with the 55 of course

 

[RUSH55]

Dad never had much good to say about 4x4, said it was a good way to get stuck worse. Long series of Chevy (2wd) pickups though, most of them with big blocks.

I had a scoutmaster who had a 75 FJ40 in freeborn red. That’s the first landcruiser I remember.

Friend in high school (RIP) had a mid-60s suburban 4x4 with a straight six. We raised some hell in that truck around Las Vegas in the late 1970s. I’ll just say that amyl nitrate and blasting caps could be purchased at the feed store.

I owned a lifted 76 Chevy shortbed with a 454 and a 4-speed for a while 90-92. It was my brother’s before I owned it. We took it out for a drive about 30 minutes before I got married in April 1990. We were late getting back. She wasn’t happy.

She owned a 89 extracab Hilux SR5 4x4 pickup in red. It was her first new car. She’d wanted a fj62, and red wasn’t her first choice of color, but couldn’t afford it then, but she has one now.

We bought a Grand Cherokee in 1996. Dumb. Spotted the 74 FJ40 in a parking lot Spokane around 2002 or 2003. Left the J**p in Spokane with a bartender.

If you get a chance to dig up any pics of that short bed Chevy, post em up. My wife’s uncle in Yuma is doing some crazy build on his (I think) 1980 Chevy. Pulled all the stops on a bad butt 454 build.

 

[Lifelong40Fan]

View attachment 2403496

Hey, I recognize that bike!

 

[gonzopancho]

If you get a chance to dig up any pics of that short bed Chevy, post em up. My wife’s uncle in Yuma is doing some crazy build on his (I think) 1980 Chevy. Pulled all the stops on a bad butt 454 build.

Man I wish.

I don’t even have pics of the fj40 build anymore. I did, but unless they’re on a backup somewhere, they’re gone.

The Internet Archive saved the pages but not the photos.

The Money Pit » Frame Work

web.archive.org

 

[RUSH55]

Hey, I recognize that bike!

Didn’t all of us 80’s kids have one?

 

[gonzopancho]

Didn’t all of us 80’s kids have one?

I dunno. I threw papers (LV Review Journal) off one of these 74-77.

But pigs started in .. 68?

The kid (teenager) next door had a 68 GTO that his dad eventually took away from him. The wife across the street had a 67 Camero with a 307 and a powerglide. Her husband had a series of Ford Rancheros. Mom drove a Buick Wildcat GS. Darn thing vapor locked a lot.

Later I had a friend who would occasionally steal his stepfather’s 76 orange Ramcharger before either of us was old enough to drive.

 

[bobm]

Didn’t all of us 80’s kids have one?

Built my own from parts other people were throwing out ! 8 kids parents couldn't afford 8 bikes

 

[Hank Tank]

Love this thread. When I was 8 or 10, my brother bought a brand new K5 Blazer and that sealed the deal for me lusting for off road adventures. I was lucky to get a used Jeep renegade to drive in HS. Cut my off road teeth on that. Loved that Jeep.

 

[RUSH55]

Chevy nailed it when they came out with the Blazer. Nailed it!

 

[riderjgs]

Almost too many to list for me. Started out with my Dad's old '51 Willys wagon, useful late on a high school weekend while partying on the desert. Best known for racing the final inbound late night commercial flight to the end of the runway. Frontier Airlines always won. There might have been 3.2 beer involved.
Post-college there were '67 and '72 Broncos, a brand new '73 FJ40 (best off road/worst on road vehicle I've owned), the '49 Willy's flat fender bought from my father-in-law that took us down Black Bear Pass for the first time, a '70s 3/4 ton GMC that hauled horse input and output, a Dodge Ramcharger, an '83 Suburban, a late '90s Cherokee, a '93 K Blazer, an '04 F150 crew, then the series of five Pigs that all contributed something to the Frankencruiser that's headed to its fourth Pig Party later this month and finally the ex-government '93 F350 crew cab, the former ranch truck that still is our workhorse for hunting excursions.
Whew...17 in all! I tell my rock-crawling friends that I've spent a lifetime in 4WD learning to avoid or go around the things they do for sport. Loved the Suburban and Blazer...over 300k on each before selling. F150 was a dream...same seats in the Pig are perhaps the best mod. Have tried to kill the F350 on multiple occasions...it just won't quit despite 27 years of abuse. Favorite is the Pig (most days.)

 

[gonzopancho]

Built my own from parts other people were throwing out ! 8 kids parents couldn't afford 8 bikes

Yep. We were only three kids, but there were no handouts. I mowed lawns and had a paper route to buy that Schwinn (used, via the local “Thrifty Nickel”), and the “10 speed” after.

Only occasionally got a ride to school.

Dad and Aunt, 4 and 2 years old. Somewhere around Shelly, Idaho. 1940.

It’s not a 4x4 though.

 

[tucker74]

We had a ‘76 Jeep Cherokee Chief - ours was brown/gold with the ubiquitous lettering on the side. Was the 401cid big block with full time 4wd and vacuum lockers. Not a cruiser by any means, but was a cool vintage 4x4 with a rear window like the 55. This was my first vehicle in HS, until I bought an ‘85 xtra cab 4wd my senior year for $2500 (it had AC). Sweated my ass off crawling around in attics pulling wire in the summer heat for that little Hilux.

Tucker

 

[RUSH55]

Oh that’s just awesome @tucker74 ! That takes me way back once again to the early 80’s. An uncle of mine had a late 70’s/early 80’s Honcho pickup (blue and white). Was with him one time following behind my Dad and a friend of his in a dune buggy, going up a sand wash and then a steep hill leading out of the wash. We stopped at the bottom and my uncle reached over, opened the glove box and turned a black knob. Then we drove up the hill and continued on. I couldn’t really comprehend what was going on at the time, but remember it being pretty neat.

 

[bobm]

KNOB? BUTTON? "G" SPOT OH MY

 

[PabloCruise]

This is a little different - probably should be in the “chat” section, but I kinda prefer chatting with guys here.

So everyone here more than likely has a history with 4wd vehicles going way back. There’s a few guys here who were lucky to have parents that owned 55’s and they rode around in them as kids - even maybe OWN the one their parents owned back in the day.
I wasn’t quite that lucky, but was lucky to have been around some pretty sweet 4x’s from some other makes pretty much since I was born.

Found several photos going through some boxes which gave in to the idea of doing a thread based on this. Lots of stories behind these rigs, I’ll touch on a couple.

The first 4wd of my childhood was my Dad’s 1956 GMC with the NAPCO conversion. Best pictures I can find also have me on the back of a horse, and riding a bike (late 70’s, early 80’s).

View attachment 2403496

View attachment 2403497

At some point in the early 80’s, my Dad traded the 56 for a 1947 Willy’s Jeep, which my Dad recalls as being one of his biggest vehicle mistakes, as the GMC was solid, and the Willy’s was a piece of sh*t. From my recollection, I think the guy he traded with was a friend of some sort of my Mom’s father, and so there may have been some leverage there, for what reason, I do not know. The Willy’s had some chunks of 2x4 lumber between the body mounts to act as a body lift, someone had cobbled up some booger-weld mounts and tossed a 327 Chevrolet engine in it, and a plethora of unknown mods that I’m sure we would all cringe at. I mean, just look at that hideous front bumper. IIRC, the cross bars above the pipes were solid-stock.
Me holding my cousin in the foreground.

View attachment 2403508

Oh man, this going to be a great thread...