Hooniverse Asks: What’s the least capable vehicle you’d take on an adventure?

Jeff Glucker

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I’m on a plane. My destination is Salt Lake City. At the other end, there’s a new Audi waiting for me and I’m going to put a few hundred miles on it. From Salt Lake to Moab. Then from Moab to Telluride. The vehicle I’ll be piloting on this adventure is the new Audi Q8. When I think of Moab, I do not think of the Q8. But I’m heading that way regardless of my preconceived notions of this heavily stylized seemingly soft roader.

Now, that’s not to say that the Q8 won’t be capable. It has all-wheel drive. It has fancy computers telling the tires how to behave based on available traction. And it most likely has heated seats so my behind will remain coddled.

The Audi Q8 is far from the least capable machine I could think to take through Moab. But now I want to know what is the least capable machine out there that has a chance of making it on through. I’d also like to hear tales of other adventures undertaken by underwhelming machinery. Have you bashed dunes in a sedan? Climbed mountains in an economy car? Have you covered surprising ground in a surprisingly sedate vehicle?

What is the least capable machine that you’d take on an adventure? Or what is the least capable machine you have taken on an adventure?

Sound off below!

About

Jeff Glucker

Jeff Glucker

Jeff Glucker is the co-founder and Executive Editor of Hooniverse.com. He’s often seen getting passed as he hustles a 1991 Mitsubishi Montero up the 405 Freeway. IG: @HooniverseJeff

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22 responses to “Hooniverse Asks: What’s the least capable vehicle you’d take on an adventure?”

  1. P161911 Avatar
    P161911

    I’ve commuted in 3-4″ of snow in a 1977 Corvette. It was surprisingly capable, the limited slip diff and near 50/50 weight balance made it better than expected.

    I’ve logged WAY TOO MANY highway miles at too fast a speed in a 1979 K-5 Blazer with 33X12.50 off road tires, stiff off road suspension, and about half the time a busted steering stabilizer.. It was my moving vehicle when I was in college. I would use it to move from Georgia to where ever my co-op job was: Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and Connecticut. I did 8 co-op terms in total. If I was within a days drive of home, I would usually drive home after a few week for a long weekend and swap the Blazer for the Corvette and repeat a few weeks before I left. Sometimes my parents were nice enough to drive the Blazer while I drove the Vette.

    Reply
    1. onrails Avatar
      onrails

      8 co-op terms sounds like you’re an alumni of Flint’s finest higher education institution.

      Reply
      1. P161911 Avatar
        P161911

        I knew a few of them. At the time they went to the school with only initials and no name. I went to Georgia Tech, worked for Dow Chemical.

        Reply
  2. Sjalabais Avatar
    Sjalabais

    Ten years ago, I would sometimes borrow my wife’s then daily, a 1996 Toyota Corolla 1.3. Going to the mountains was hilarious. On uphill stretches, I could drive flat out for long intervalls, sometimes half an hour, only intercepted by gear changes.

    My Volvos were all abused beyond recognition. Always there to help friends move (yes, eight chairs and a dining table fit into a 145). The worst overload though was when we redid the bathroom. 600kg of tiles, my wife and I, and a few tools – i.e. proper tools, not me. Cough. I wouldn’t do that today, but back then, I just didn’t care and ancient Volvos have this habit of turning the other cheek…

    Reply
  3. Manxman Avatar
    Manxman

    When much younger I used my hand-me-down 62 Ford Galaxie 4-door for everything including trips from Austin to the valley, El Paso, camping, etc. I was young and naive and didn’t know I couldn’t take a clapped out I6 with Fordomatic anywhere. The same was true of my Honda CB160. There were no adventure-touring specific bikes back then – bikes were bikes and I used my Honda as a daily driver for school and work and play. Now I have a 2009 Scion XD that seems to be able to go anywhere without fail.

    Reply
  4. neight428 Avatar
    neight428

    Myself and four college friends decided that since a recently graduated and employed friend had a hotel room in Denver for his new job that we should crash it, stay with him on his consulting firm’s nickel and go skiing one spring break. One friend’s parents got wind of our scheme and decided we’d probably freeze to death on a mountain pass if we attempted it in any of our assorted college student shitboxes, so they rented us a Taurus. Five adult sized people and their gear for a week in a Taurus from Dallas to Denver and back. I don’t recommend it.

    The discomfort from sitting without being able to move my legs for hours on end due to the junk packed around them was matched by a gastric difficulty only relieved by leaving a Wichita Falls Popeye’s Fried Chicken men’s room worse than I found it. No small feat.

    Reply
  5. SlowJoeCrow Avatar
    SlowJoeCrow

    I think a Citroen 2CV could go some surprising places since it’s lightweight and has lots of ground clearance and wheel travel. Worst case it’s light enough to push/carry over obstacles.

    My seemingly least capable experience was driving a 1995 Ford Escort with all season tires over the Santiam pass in Oregon in a snowstorm and to and from Mt. Bachelor on the same trip, also in a snow storm. Everybody else was in AWD cars or SUVs except one hapless Buick spinning its wheels in the parking lot.

    I think the Prius driver who had to be pushed out of parking spot in the Sno-park also qualifies as wrong tool for the job.

    Reply
    1. outback_ute Avatar
      outback_ute

      I don’t think there would be too many places a 2CV hasn’t been, taking them on adventure trips has been a thing for decades. Maybe not Moab though, steep hills are not their friends

      Reply
  6. 0A5599 Avatar
    0A5599

    In high school, a friend had a well-used Beetle. We would occasionally take it places that weren’t roads (and it was stock, not a Baja conversion).

    To get to one of our favorite hoon sites required going up someone’s driveway, then across their un-fenced backyard. The other neighbors had fences or other obstructions. This house had a driveway that was one car width, but 5 or 6 car lengths before angling into a side-facing garage. This meant we could only off-road when the house didn’t have any cars in the driveway.

    We went out on the last day of school. Driveway empty, good to go, or so we thought. The lady of the house was gardening in the backyard. When she saw us cutting across the backyard, she came at us with her rake. Fortunately for us, she was slower than a Beetle.

    We had to stay out for a very long time before we made the return to her yard to get back into the neighborhood. That was the last time for us.

    Reply
  7. Batshitbox Avatar
    Batshitbox

    Well, for sheer hubris and a cavalier attitude towards breaking down in the middle of nowhere… (that is, ill-advised rather than under-capacity)

    For going to Burning Man and thence across the country and back a 25 year old 1970 F-250 sounds like a capable vehicle, but I had just put in (three days after our departure date) a junkyard engine. Even then, once it made it past Sacramento I figured we had it made, and we did.

    Tuesday answer: Riding a 10 year old, out of production, unsupported, obscure even by Italian motorcycle standards Laverda 1000 across the US probably could have gone a lot worse than it did. But, it was a liter bike with standard cockpit ergonomics, and had less than 10K miles on it.

    Reply
  8. Peter Tanshanomi Avatar
    Peter Tanshanomi

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3fa05abb5f750d75b82abc75eb5d94ffd7a7be7a1f16f283f9ed31abf710ee21.jpg

    This trip included not only snow in the passes, but about 30 miles of unpaved two-track at lower elevation.

    Reply
    1. neight428 Avatar
      neight428

      50cc’s up a mountain pass sounds slow and cold.

      Clearly, we (see below) were sissies.

      Reply
    2. Batshitbox Avatar
      Batshitbox

      Remember when JeepJeff rode his TW200 on a poorly supported rally through Death Valley in August?

      Reply
      1. Peter Tanshanomi Avatar
        Peter Tanshanomi

        Of course. I thoroughly exploited his misery.
        http://shoutengine.com/FalseNeutral/lemons-rallying-with-jeepjeff-23604

        Reply
      2. mdharrell Avatar
        mdharrell

        As one of the other participants, I wouldn’t describe that rally as “poorly supported” so much as “unsupported.” That’s one reason my International was in convoy with the Super Snipe, to the extent that I could keep up with it. Alan Frisbie is a bit of a leadfoot.

        Reply
      3. Peter Tanshanomi Avatar
        Peter Tanshanomi

        Of course. I thoroughly exploited his misery.
        http://shoutengine.com/FalseNeutral/lemons-rallying-with-jeepjeff-23604

        Reply
  9. mdharrell Avatar
    mdharrell

    My HMV Freeway is unstoppable until something stops it. This was my attempt to reach Monterey from Seattle.

    https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3680/9525901728_0f26be8698.jpg

    Reply
  10. Le Dominus Avatar
    Le Dominus

    My plan was to drive my first Tuk Tuk from Bangkok to Turkey (to make it EU there), and then to Spain. My (now) ex wife did not want me to do this. Driven 800 miles on a Vespa PX 150 in a weekend though….

    Right now, would love to drive from Spain to the North Cape on a Can-Am. I think i love things with an extra wheel… https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/54419676e5bfa930ec83448c243b7af896b30ad9a3467fb4237d473b8f988c46.jpg

    Reply
  11. I_Borgward Avatar
    I_Borgward

    I don’t know if “driving in snow, surrounded by incompetents” qualifies as adventure, but it can sure feel like one.

    Portland, Oregon had been blanketed with snow one night, over 16 inches and drifting. Not a lot measured by the upper Midwestern standards of my youth, but when you add in steep hills and a pool of drivers generally unaccustomed to the white stuff, enough to cause chaos.

    And, I had my own wild card to throw in: a 1976 Triumph TR7.

    Word from the boss was that I had to make it to work, which meant another drive west from downtown, up and over the West Hills and out to the ‘burbs. I nearly said, “no way, can’t be done”, but against my better judgment, I decided I would at least give it the old college try. I dug out my TR7, managed to make it off of my block and and began the slog up to Highway 26, a road I’ve never liked even on a good day. No chains, not even a bucket of sand to aid me.

    You want to talk “least capable”? With no weight over the drive axle and all of the ground clearance of a pregnant weasel, you’d think a TR7 would be among the worst choices you could possibly make for a snow car (some would say, “or any car”, though I quite liked mine). But the thing just kept plowing ahead, and dormant memory of how to drive in the snow kicked in. Ha! This isn’t so bad, I thought.

    I then arrived at the entrance to the highway. To my shock, horror and amazement, it looked like the road out of Kuwait City after the Gulf War, only covered in snow. Random vehicles splayed all across the lanes, even a few with 4WD, abandoned in place by their drivers all the way uphill to the tunnel entrance. But, there was still a relatively clear path around the center lane, so I just kept going. I made it to the shop, did my work, and went back home by the same route.

    Since then, I’ve learned to just stay home during a heavy snowstorm when I can, like everyone else. It all usually melts within a week, anyway.

    Reply
  12. HuntRhymesWith Avatar
    HuntRhymesWith

    I want an Exige S with a lift kit.

    OK, I just want an Exige S and am willing to justify that desire by any means possible.

    Reply
  13. dan0 Avatar
    dan0

    I took a NB Miata with summer tires to VT to go snowboarding one winter day. Didn’t know it was going to snow 4″ on the way up there. Butt clenching most of the way up there, also because I had to you know, go… Made it to the mountain, didn’t make it all the way up the parking lot (one way loop) so I had to roll back slowly and park going the opposite way (smaller mountain, not a lot of vehicles). Luckily it was good conditions and the type of storm that clears quickly so roads were completely clear making the ride home more comfortable than the drive there.

    Reply
  14. salguod Avatar
    salguod

    Some guy took a Crown Vic to moab:

    Reply