Two weekends ago, our long term FJ Cruiser celebrated New Year's Day by flying over rutted washboard roads in Death Valley, Ca.
As a part of a three vehicle, 10-person caravan, the "Cookie Monster" had many friends rotate through as passengers and give opinions.
Christine and Darrell felt the backseat was "clausterphobic", but after a while they likened it to "being in a lear jet". The aviation theme continued as Rebecca thought the back seat windows would be better with "airline style pull-down shades."Â Megan likened the exterior to an "ugly transformer", while Jeff became frustrated with the swing-out rear door that would "open all the way even if you just want to get something real quick."
Garret acted as the XM DJ most of the way up...
He found the audio system's display difficult to read, but after some practice was able to set our favorite stations easily.
I was looking forward to getting some off-road seat time in, since I enjoy smashing up my '85 FJ60 regularly. I appreciated that the transfer case shifter was actually a manual shifter, and not a flimsy "is it in 4LO yet" on-dash knob. Also, as I'm used to wheeling with a manual transmission, I liked the flexibility of selecting any of the 5 gears I wanted and sticking with it. Although there wasn't any insane rock crawling on this trip, we drove over miles and miles of rutted and washboard roads with an occasional sandy washout. Compared to my truck's teeth-rattling ride, the FJ just sailed along, and I had so much fun, I forgot about my cramped rear passengers.
(I apologize for the post being late and out of sequence, but I spent the last two weeks furiously preparing for and working on our complete video coverage of the 2007 Detroit Auto Show .)
John Adolph, Video Production Specialist
I was looking forward to getting some off-road seat time in, since I enjoy smashing up my '85 FJ60 regularly. I appreciated that the transfer case shifter was actually a manual shifter, and not a flimsy "is it in 4LO yet" on-dash knob. Also, as I'm used to wheeling with a manual transmission, I liked the flexibility of selecting any of the 5 gears I wanted and sticking with it. Although there wasn't any insane rock crawling on this trip, we drove over miles and miles of rutted and washboard roads with an occasional sandy washout. Compared to my truck's teeth-rattling ride, the FJ just sailed along, and I had so much fun, I forgot about my cramped rear passengers.
(I apologize for the post being late and out of sequence, but I spent the last two weeks furiously preparing for and working on our complete video coverage of the 2007 Detroit Auto Show .)
John Adolph, Video Production Specialist
alpha01 says:
10:00 AM, 01/14/07
Great write-up, man. Sounds fun.
readerreader says:
12:20 PM, 01/14/07
Cool. Wish I had kids to go on a trip like that with.