Welcome to Project Car Hell, where you choose your eternity by selecting the project that's the coolest... and the most hellish! When we last dove into the triazadienyl fluoride-filled Garage-O-Pain, we learned that eternity with a Lancia Scorpion would be better- or maybe worse- than eternity with an Austin Healey Sprite race car. We've been neglecting our four-wheelin' friends for too long; in fact, the last time we pitted one four-wheel-drive truck against another was last winter's Farm Equipment Edition PCH. So here we go- does PCH Microbe Japan have any hope whatsoever against PCH Superpower Britain? We'll find out today!
You hear a lot about the Toyota Land Cruiser, but don't forget that Nissan also made an off-road truck back in the day! That's right, we mean the Nissan Patrol, and you can get this '69 (go here if the ad disappears) for under a thousand bucks. Well, that's the asking price; reading the statement "i have it parked behind my house in Norwood and sold the house so I need to n move it" and checking out the photos makes us think the real price might be a lot lower. It ran when parked "a few years ago" (probable translation: 1995), and Colorado is pretty dry- probably not much rust. How hard could it be?
Let's look at the question of which vintage 4-wheel-drive to get in a different way: say you're an African warlord and you need to move your stash of gold bars and AK-47s across the border before some up-and-coming regional strongman takes it away from you. What vehicle do you want to use? No, you can't have a Toyota Hilux- that's against the rules of this game. That's right, you'll take an old Land Rover! So when you're scouring the mossy, mildewy wilds of coastal Oregon for a nice off-road machine to take on the kind of camping trip that resembles the Bataan Death March, what's it going to be? You got it- this '1960ish' Land Rover (go here if the ad disappears). Sure, it needs everything replaced a little TLC, and the rust problem is terminal somewhat severe, but it's only $350! In a single sentence, the seller maps out the road in front of the next owner of this fine British machine: "Has motor where it should be but tranny parts are in back seat of vehical & does not run." See, the motor is where it should be! Easy project, for sure!
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