It has to be the shined up Super Swampers. That’s gotta be it. Listen, I love this Jeep. I know you hardcore off-road guys (I’m looking at you SBG) hate it and scoff at stuff like this because the furthest it will venture off road is likely to the outfield of a local baseball field during a car show but I cannot help myself. I literally learned to read on Hot Rod Magazine and Petersen’s 4-Wheel and Off Road. During the 1980s when that was happening it was chrome shocks, huge show trucks, and leaf springs that taught me the letter U long before Mrs. Reynolds (my kindergarten teacher, not Chad’s mom!) did in her classroom. Like the custom van era, lots of truck guys want to forget that ever happened and we understand. In today’s world guys are building things so amazing and capable to see a monster street cruiser like this is almost offensive to them. To me? This is a dream rig from the time when I was about 7-8 years old.
The 1978 Jeep is powered by a Chevy small block and the truck looks like it was crafted pretty well to us. The double roll bar, the paint, those big 44″ Swampers, and the general finish of the thing look up to snuff. We’re sure it rides horriby and all of that stuff but that’s part of the program. If the thing had rear-wheel steering I’d really contemplate off loading everything else I have to take a swing at buying it. Because the Jeep is so straight ahead there isn’t that much to talk about other than the fact I’m likely going to get killed in the comment section for just admitting to liking the thing and especially for admitting it would be something I’d buy given the chance. Useless? To you, maybe. A dream machine for me!
12″ of lift, big Chevy axles, 5.13 gears, lockers front and back, a four speed, a small block Chevy, all that tire surrounding those little rims, and dual shocks at the corners. The shocks are blue instead of chrome but that’s A-OK with me.
I’ll be over here if you need me…
Rigs like this got me hooked on trucks as a kid – Useless but completely awesome –
Perfection. I don’t see a thing wrong with it, but I too spent my childhood gawking at 4WOR, Fourwheeler, and OffRoad. I’ve got more photos of rigs from that era coming your way soon.
Scoff alert
Where’s the Jeep? I see a Chevy Blazer that’s been re-bodied
This is what it was about when I was a kid. I love it, but it is as useless as tits on a fish….
It’s funny that you said you learned to read on Hot Rod and 4Wheel and Off-Road…I was never a 4×4 guy, but I definitely learned to read via Hot Rod…only a decade earlier – the ’70’s! The above Jeep would have been in my High School years, when I was rolling around in my “71 Javelin (I mean, everybody had Mustangs and Camaros!)
Other than the body lift and the freakin’ skull on the rear (that is NOT period correct, by the way), its perfect.
Love it!
Crazy body lifts I remember more than one bush beater with hockey puck lifts coming apart , or those swampers on the road in the rain with a locker fun times.
Oh yeah, loved the Petersen 4wd magazines in the 1980s.
Never really liked Jeeps built like this though, step side pickups though are a totally different story.
But yeah, I’d totally cruise this around. Maybe through some Supertrap mufflers on it though.