I've had some really great cars.  I've never had one that I've absolutely hated.  Of all of them this one is my favorite... a 1988 Suzuki Samurai.
     It's like a tiny Jeep.  It was my first new car ever.  I got a Plain Jane and it only cost me $8600.00.  It came with almost nothing; not even a radio, no power steering, no air conditioning, etc.  But it had everything I needed. 
     What was so good about it?   I loved to go off roading in the Jersey Pines and this was the perfect vehicle for it.  First of all it came with a rather high ground clearance so you could get some pretty big, beefy tires on it without a lift.  Also you could slide under it to work on it without jacking it up.  It had a tight five speed overdrive transmission and though it had a very small engine, sixty nine horsepower, it shifted like a sports car.  It was outrageously fun to drive, like taking a go cart on the road. 
     It is a tiny vehicle weighing in at only 2,059 lb.  That was an advantage.  It got 35 mpg which is great for a 4X.  But the best thing about it being so light is that it would "float" over deep sand that bigger trucks would get bogged down in. 
     Shortly after I bought my Sammy I was still figuring out exactly what it was capable of.  I drove down to a spot called Bare Assed Beach on the beautiful Mullica River.  There are a bunch of very steep hills and beaches with very deep sand there.  From the top of the bank I looked down and there were about half a dozen Big Foots at the bottom.  These were full blown monster trucks.  One of them had buried itself in the sand and the others were trying to pull it out.  It took them about forty minutes to finally get it free.  I waited until they were gone and took my Sammy down to where Big Foot had been stuck.  Of course it left some huge ruts.  I spent the next few minutes driving in and out of Big Foot's ruts with impunity.  The sand that the monsters couldn't handle was absolutely nothing to my little Suzuki.  This was the start of a long love affair.
      Back then I went off roading a lot, often several times a week.  Through twenty six years of countless wild and wooly adventures Sammy never got stuck once.
      It was also my daily ride.  I commuted back and forth to work in it and it was impressively dependable. 
      After twenty six years of hard use Sammy needed a rebuild, something I had neither the equipment or expertise to do.  So reluctantly I sold it.  That car was full of wonderful memories. 
    One a side note many Samurais were converted to rock crawlers due their agility and dependability.  These days they are rare.  I almost never see any on the road. 
     So what was or is your favorite car?

09 z06

You're stirring up a lot of memories RM.  I never had a Samurai, but I have a friend who had two of them way back when.  We did the same stuff.  His family has a farm and also has a lot of wooded property.  We were trail riding and beating the heck out of those things non-stop.  I agree with you 100%, those things would go anywhere!


For my own favorite (talking about vehicles I've owned), I have to go with a truck.  I drove cars when I was younger because that's what my dad had, and what was available to me.  Everything I've bought on my own has been an SUV or a pickup.  The one I remember the most was a red '96 Dodge Dakota.  Got it cheap when I was going to college.  It was a regular cab short bed.  A really small truck.  I had the stereo all amped up (pun intended) including 10 inch subs behind the seats.  That did cause some seating discomfort.  Because it was a regular cab truck, the seats didn't have much room to recline.  And after I put speaker boxes behind them, the backs of those seats were straight-up and that was it!
There was some mudding and trail riding in it.  Not a ton.  In the winter we used to go in the fields and do donuts in the snow.  I was a commuter in college so I logged a lot of miles in that little truck.  It was the cheapest vehicle I ever bought price-wise.  But it has more memories than any other.