After driving a modified Jeep Wrangler for so long, my fascination with the Wrangler stopped. Do not get me wrong, I love my Wrangler, but with the skyrocketing cost of gas, and my lack of
The Beginning:
taking it off-road anymore. I really saw no purpose of keeping it as my daily driver. I wanted to get something else, because to be truthful. I got tired of breaking stuff due to mudding, and off-road use. My wrangler sadly became my money pit, which really didn’t deliver what I needed for family trips, or long distance.
In truth, I wanted an AWD vehicle, good on gas, with lots of storage room. Something I could camp in with my kid or a friend, something that had the extra room I needed for our antique picking adventures.
When I mentioned this to my friends, they laughed at the thought of me going from a lifted Wrangler to a Honda Element. I mean how do you go from being one of the founders of Jeep League, and doing swamping to a Honda Element? LOL
I guess, I got to a point in my life, that it wasn’t about stature anymore for me, but about creating amazing memories with the people I love. It was about the adventures above all else. My kid is 12yrs old now, and I wanted a vehicle that I could do father / son expeditions with. Something I could possibly pass on to him later in life, something easy we could build together.
Mind you, I have had fast cars in my life, lowered trucks, raised jeeps. Basically I have been there, done that numerous times over. I felt an Element would serve my purpose, and the build would be a fun thing. However, little did I know, that the task which proved to be the most difficult, was finding one that I could work on for the right price.
It was a three and a half month process……