I went to the 4Wheel Expo in Phoenix Saturday... It was OK, but where were the Toyotas? After wading through about 500 J**ps that all looked the same :rolleyes: with all the normal look-a-like stuff there were 3 Toys: A Land Cruiser-bodied narrow buggy, A FJ60 Land Cruiser, and "The Thing", a 1/2 Toy pickup 1/2 rear custom suspension radical truck that was made to suffer the indignity of being in the back all by itself! And I thought Kong's was a Toyota shop? They had a ford and 2 Jeeps. Oh and maybe that Tacoma was from Kongs?

hey-

the show was very small- with the exception of Kong's 4x4, OR FAB and Avalanche Engineering, the show was a bust for rock crawling- Also got to meet Bertha from Fort Huachuca- had a good time w/ him-

I did enjoy seeing Scott Douglas again. I'd helped him change a tire on the Parker 400 about 10 years ago. His closed course all wheel drive off road truck is running
780 HP!!!!!!!!! Gawd, I wanna drive it!!!!!

later

I was disapointed with the lack of Toyota stuff too. Mark (kongs)rolled his runner recently and it is getting a new body.

Maybe the Toys were all out wheeling? :p

Oh yeah I guess there is that...

And I forgot to mention... even though it was probably swine vocalization training (teaching a pig to sing) I decided to pull a Toyota rep aside and tell them about Toyota's lack of market for the off-roader. I explained that I was considering a purchase of a Wrangler (2003 Rubicon) or Xterra (not) and I think I got his attention. I told him about IFS, manual trannies, lockers, etc and that lots of people I know and know of are Toyota fanatics, and that many of us would consider Toyota if there was somthing more like a current-model Land Cruiser in Australia or a retro FJ40, or especially a pickup. Who knows? Maybe I got his attention. He was writing stuff down. But it was probably just what he was ordering for lunch....

That cruiser is bad ass on the trails. He passed us on Axle Alley after I winched up the waterfall. It took him a couple of minutes, but he eventually drove it up with the hydraulics and rear steer combo. The 42's didn't hurt either. It looked like a new hood from the rolled one he had on there too. Most of the show and chrome ooh and ahh'ers had no clue what was going on with that truck. They were too busy looking at all the jacked up Avalanches and TJ's.
How about the white Superduty with the chrome springs, shocks, and flamed grill? Or the yellow Dodge monster with no front driveshaft? There were only like 5 real wheelers, too many show trucks that'll never get used.

Originally posted by Yota_San
Maybe the Toys were all out wheeling? :p

Yes we were.:D

I know don't even get me started on all the poser crap that was there. The Avalanches were an example of a real ugly "truck" that was made to look even uglier. Especially the one with the big lift and 31" tires!!!

It was funny to see the looks on people's faces when they saw the tube frame cruiser and "The Thing"... uhhh what's that junk doing here?? AFAIC the rockcrawler stuff belongs in front. Keep that poser jeep look-a-like stuff in back. So there.