Digging through my photo archives this weekend I ran across a folder of images from a few off road driving outings in North Carolina’s Uhwarrie National Forest. These shots are from 2009. That’s me driving - happy days! 

I sold the Nissan Xterra in 2010 when I left the US. Now that I am living here again I would give anything to have the Xterra back. I spent a lot of evenings and weekends setting it up just perfectly for off road driving. That included modifying and reinforcing the suspension, adding a lift for clearance and beefing up the armor. 

Note the water line on the front bumper below. It’s well above the bottom of the doors.

In the shot above, the gray metal bar running along under the door sills is called a rock slider. It’s a solid piece of steel and it was added to protect the bodywork should the wheels slip when climbing over rocks. I’ve landed on those sliders a couple of times and when that happens the screech of metal on rock is butt clenching. 

Here I was climbing a very steep hill. The rock the wheel is on tipped the vehicle over at a stomach-churning angle. We have angle gauges in several places in the vehicles to let us know if we are going too far. Before we start these climbs we pull the fuses for the airbags so the extreme angles and sharp bumps don’t set them off unintentionally. Airbags aren’t much use when rolling down a hill on your roof. We turn off the ABS and traction control so we can induce a slide when it’s needed. 

More recently I restored an off roader in Ireland. This is my 31 year old Mercedes G-Wagen. It was an abandoned mess when I bought it but I spent a lot of time and money renovating it, mostly focusing on the mechanical functions, i.e. the majority of the work is hidden underneath. It has a 2.8L, six cylinder, gasoline engine, automatic transmission, and front and back diff locks. The tires are 32” mud terrains. It will go anywhere. 

The first shot below was taken in West Cork, Ireland, the second on a family vacation driving across the Pyrenees from France into Spain…

That’s me with two fine ladies.