Anybody who tells you that Arizona is nothing but sand and cactus is full of it. Head north…anywhere past the Mogollon Rim, the drop-off that separates Northern Arizona from the Mojave and Sonoran Desert areas…and you will find juniper forests, mountain trails, rocky scrambles and, if you time your visit to coincide with the monsoon season, mud. From Prescott to Flagstaff and beyond, Arizona offers up beautiful off-roading. A word of advice from someone who knows: don’t take a mid-2000s Mustang onto the trails, you’ll rattle your teeth out.
Cheap Truck Challenge is an awesome concept. Take the year (2015)…you get $2,015 to purchase an off-roader and $2,015 to upgrade it. Then you hit the trails and hope like hell that you don’t break down. This year, Fred Williams from Dirt Every Day brought out a flat fender Jeep and rounded up a Kaiser-era CJ-5, an early 1960s Dodge W-200 Power Wagon, and of all things, a late 1990s Kia Sportage. And it is very strange of me to say, but I was rooting for the little Kia. All of the rigs are cool, and Daystar, the team that put together the trip, brought out a first-gen Ford Explorer that really appeals to me, but there is something about the Kia that just works. But that’s my opinion…check out the footage and let us know what you think!
Gonna have to watch this. CTC was one of my favorite features Fred brought to 4WOR when he joined the editorial staff when I was a kid.
Neat episode. Too short.
Once in a while you see those Kia Sportages, but not often. I think most broke down or something, though I’m not sure what their weak point is. Perhaps the owners were the problems.
Love the Explorer. Wish I could have seen more of it in action. They are seriously capable rigs.
I know a lot of Sportages got scavenged by Mazda guys for the FE3 engine.
There’s more of Quiet Brian’s Explorer in the second part of the Texas Ranch Jeep Rescue episode and the Toyota Tundra road trip episode, and a few-months-old article on it in the tech section of 4WOR’s website. I hope that this helps.
It is a really nice, practical build; I admire it a lot, too.