If you woke up from a coma and had no idea what time of year it was, you could probably tell just from what colors the decorations in the hospital were. Red and green? It’s Christmas. Bunch of pastels? Easter. Red, white, and blue? Fourth of July. And of course, if everything is black and orange, it must be Halloween. So it only seems fitting that we look at some orange cars this week, and the two that caught my eye were these two old four-wheel drives.
Yesterday we looked at two spooky white Mustangs with blood-red upholstery. Neither one was the engine or transmission you would want, but they both ran and drove, so they would at least get you around reliably. At least, until you’re in a movie and someone is chasing you and you have to get away, at which point even a brand-new car will fail to start. Most of you picked the newer and better-looking Fox-body Mustang, despite its lackluster four-cylinder engine and automatic transmission.
Ordinarily, I’d take a Fox over a Mustang II, but between these two specific cars, I think the II is where it’s at. Let’s face it; I’m never going to do an engine swap, as much as I like to think about it, and the Mustang II is the more interesting car as it sits. And as much as I dislike Landau tops, at least that one matches the paint.
Orange seems like a strange color to associate with a spooky holiday. It’s bright and cheerful, not gloomy or scary. But once Jack-O’-Lanterns started being made from pumpkins instead of turnips, the color was forever associated with Halloween. Which is just as well; nobody is going to sit in a vegetable garden and await the arrival of the Great Turnip.
(A quick aside: I once dressed as Linus for Halloween and spent the night handing out pamphlets preaching the “Good News” about the Great Pumpkin. Got a lot of laughs, but no converts.)
All right, enough off-topic waffle. Let’s check out some four-by-fours. October is, after all, truck month.
1961 Jeep CJ-5 – $8,000
Engine/drivetrain: 134 cubic inch F-head inline 4, three-speed manual, 4WD
Location: Pauma Valley, CA
Odometer reading: 35,000 miles
Operational status: Runs and drives well
First – and this is vitally important – nobody tell David about this Jeep, or the fact that it’s just a couple hours south of him. I have never met his blushing bride, but I do not want to end up on her bad side from three thousand miles away. He cannot know that such a nice, good-running Jeep is up for sale so close by. And it really is nice; the seller restored it to be a good driver, not a showpiece, but it looks great in the photos.
This is an old CJ-5, back when Jeeps were still made by Willys. It features its original “Hurricane” F-head four-cylinder engine and Borg-Warner T90 three-speed transmission. It probably tops out at about fifty miles an hour, but it’ll go anywhere you point it off-road. The engine, transmission, and transfer case were all rebuilt as part of the restoration, and all work as they should.
Inside, it’s a good old bare-bones Jeep, with absolutely nothing that isn’t strictly necessary. The front seats look like the original style, and it has a rear seat that looks like it came from a later 1970s or ’80s Jeep. Be warned: If safety is your primary concern, this is not the vehicle for you. Not only are there no seatbelts nor a roll bar, but the gas tank is right under the driver’s seat.
The flat-orange paint outside has a rough texture to it; I suspect it’s Rhino-Liner or something similar. The seller made no effort to fix any dents or wrinkles in the bodywork before paint, but hopefully they repaired any rust that was there. This Jeep was built to drive, not to sit around at car shows, but you still want it to hold together and look good.
1980 Chevrolet K5 Blazer – $5,000
Engine/drivetrain: 350 cubic inch OHV V8, three-speed automatic, 4WD
Location: Duncanville, TX
Odometer reading: unknown
Operational status: Runs and drives
The original Chevy Blazer was the first of what would come to be the standard full-size SUV template: it’s just a K10 pickup truck, shortened by about a foot, with the cab and bed as one piece and no wall between them. The top is removable; in the early days, the entire top came off, but starting in 1976, the roof above the front seats became fixed, and only the rear section was removable. It’s common to see these Blazers with the top off in nice weather; I knew someone who removed the top from theirs in May and refused to put it back on until November.
The classic drivetrain for a K5 Blazer is what this one has: a 350 V8 and a Turbo 350 automatic. Six-cylinder engines and manual transmissions were both available, but rare. The engine and transmission in this one have both been rebuilt, the transmission only eight hundred miles ago. It has a bunch of other recent mechanical work done, and though the seller doesn’t explicitly say that it runs and drives, I see no reason why it shouldn’t. And the photos have been taken in a bunch of different places. I doubt they towed it all over town just for photos.
We don’t get any good, clear images of the interior, but what I can see doesn’t look too promising. A lot of these Blazers end up trashed inside, so it’s not too surprising, but it is disappointing. The seller spent a lot of money cramming a big stereo into it, but didn’t take the time to tidy up any of the wiring for it. And you just know those seats are a nightmare of cracked vinyl and leaking padding underneath those covers.
I don’t know if this truck was originally orange or not, but I think so. Orange was available, and the door sills and radiator support seem to match the outside. The paint is toast, and one fender needs to be replaced; you can see it in some photos but not others. Also, I just noticed that someone has added “truck nuts” to it, actual nuts hanging on a chain, which is less disturbing than those fake-scrotum ones, but still ridiculous.
Off-roading is hard on vehicles; you don’t really want something that’s too pretty. Sure, if you start out with something good-looking, you should do what you can to protect it, but I think it’s better to just start out with something a little bit beat-up already. These would do nicely. Which one appeals to you?
Neither really appeals, as I already have a mostly-disassembled Wrangler sitting in the garage. But the Blazer is too hideous to consider. From the wheels to the lift job to the stereo to the interior that looks like a seedy nightclub the next morning – everything screams “run”.
I guarantee that Blazer has been General Lee’d more than twice.
Sitting this one out today. A true horror show!
I have no need for either of these, so the Blazer being $3000 cheaper pretty much makes the difference for me. Plus I already have a compact SUV that can fit on tight trails, so just maybe the larger Blazer would occasionally have practical uses for things my Tracker can’t fit? I probably couldn’t get it past an Ontario safety with the windshield like that, though
The Blazer is owned by somebody who has never in their life done the right thing and is proud of it. The Jeep could be a literal pile of rust, and I would rather have it.
The Jeep is stupidly overpriced, but the Chevy is a compendium of bad decisions and a banner for a regrettable lifestyle.
That Jeep is an absolute bondo bucket, I guarantee it. Those things even rust in the desert (as David himself has shown us), and now that it’s covered in pumpkin spice bedliner, you’ll never be able to fix it.
That isn’t a great example of a Blazer. I’d have to spend a lot of time debillhilling it, but at least all the parts are available and not particularly expensive. As a southern truck, at least the cab/body mounts shouldn’t be bluetooth like all the Blazers here in the rust belt, so it’s at least a decent starting point to building a decent driver that you wouldn’t be afraid to take offroad. I’d offer $3800 cash money to take it home, and be willing to go up to $4200.
Clearly the owner of that Blazer had his or her fun with it, moved the wheels to a new project and stuck the wheels from his Geo Tracker on there so it will roll when it sells.
It looks like a Hippo on roller skates.
The CJ is at least built properly, the K10 has tires that are too small for the lift, and just looks like someone else’s project to darken my yard with.
The Blazer has been hooned to heck and back. As much as I like it, I’ll pass, thanks. The CJ is probably hiding some rust issues, but at least I know I can do something stupid like order a whole new frame for it if I need to.
I’m fairly positive that the Jeep is hiding some bad stuff under that rhino lining, but I don’t care…I’ll take that over the very bad energy coming from that Blazer.
The Blazer will get you shot in sketchy neighborhoods.
The Blazer will get you shot in
sketchydecent neighborhoods.That, too. Maybe by different people, but still…
I would say that the presence of the Blazer is what makes the neighborhood sketchy, at best.
Bus pass.
I’m very concerned that the bright, new, orange paint on the Jeep is hiding unrepaired rust and a boatload of Bondo. I went Blazer
If they remade The Dukes of Hazzard in today’s SUV centric world, that K10 would get “01” painted on the doors (and a Don’t Tread on Me flag on the much smaller roof above the front seats) and they’d be good to go. It would be great to have Catherine Bach back as a reimagined Boss Hogg.
That said, I went with the Jeep.
Maybe only a modern incarnation of Catherine Bach would not be shot for driving/be driven in that K10 (see our conversation with Mr. Ignatius J. Reilly). Or Catherine Bach herself.
I must live in a sketchy neighborhood then. Trucks like that aren’t that abnormal in the these parts. Way more rust on average, but the ride height and oversized tires… Yeah, that wouldn’t really stick out at all.
If the Dukes was remade today – they’d have to look for a 10 year old car to use as the General as they did then (1979 show – 1969 car). So they’d need a 2015-ish ride. Honestly a 2015 Charger would be the perfect and obvious fit.
Blazer for me. That’s actually a really good price for a square body Blazer that runs and drives. Plus it can (probably) be driven at highway speeds.
I’ll take the Jeep, if for no other reason, than to save Elise (not her real name) from having to look at it parked in her (and DT’s) driveway.
I’m really not into either genre, what are you guys picking?
And I just watched The Great Pumpkin on DVD last night. You know he STILL hasn’t shown up?
The jeep is easy to work on, in better shape and would be fun to take places. The blazer is close to trailer queen status and would be better replaced with a side by side at the off road park.
Other than the sketchy wiring, both of them are about the same level of easy to work on. The Jeep is just lower.
I love a square body Blazer, but that one needs a LOT of love. I could start cruising around in that old Jeep tomorrow (or in the spring, it’s gotten chilly here as of late)
I drive an orange jeep and work on my buddy’s 49 CJ often and go to the off road parks with vehicles just like both of these types. I would rather do business with the kind of guys that restomod an old jeep than the kind of guys that put skulls and truck nuts on Blazers. I know lots of both kinds of people and I have a clear choice.
You can drive the Jeep today and start *positive* conversations in the parking lot all day long. You can drive the Blazer today, maybe, and get pulled over for a broken windshield while people side eye you across the parking lot.
I’ll take the Jeep.
I don’t mind a bit of side-eye, and here in Florida most of the smokeys will likely look upon the Blazer with admiration rather than ticket-ability
We are a backwards state
That Blazer looks like it saw a mouse.
The Jeep is perfectly safe from Our Man Tracy: it doesn’t come with a bucket of bits that have fallen off.
That said, it isn’t perfectly safe from me. It’s old-school cool, looks pretty great and isn’t saddled with a bucket of bits that have fallen off.
The bucket of bits is glued on with the bedliner. Look how wrinkly that thing is. It screams bondo bucket at the top of it’s lungs.
Not enough rust on the jeep
“The seller made no effort to fix any dents or wrinkles in the bodywork before paint, but hopefully they repaired any rust that was there.”
Maybe?? The sides look suspiciously like the paint is covering either rust or Bondo or both. I dunno. From a distance, I think I’d rather go with that Blazer. Lifted trucks are not my style, but it seems more the honest of the two to me.
My favorite Bondo story: When I was in college, one of the guys in my dorm building brought home a beautiful, baby-blue 1972 Gran Torino. That 351 Cleveland sounded soooo good and it was just a gorgeous machine. About a week later, most of the passenger-side of the car fell off. The previous owner had used several cans of Bono to fill in a huge dent where it had been t-boned. It was a good object lesson on checking used cars with a magnet before buying.
My favorite bondo story was the CJ-7 a buddy of mine bought in high school. The tub turned out to be mostly bondo and cardboard. He got frustrated while wrenching on it one night, and punched it out of rage. His fist went right through the tub!
It looked remarkably like this Jeep probably did before they hosed it down with bedliner.
WITH OR WITHOUT YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
If you drive away drive away, drive away drive away
I will follow
😀
“Bono” – it’s the more stylish, hip dent-filler.
“U2 can fill dents like a pro!”
Were I to own a Jeep CJ-* it would likely be one of those. When I was 10-12 I learned to drive on one at my buddy’s place deeeep in the National Forest outside of Tallahassee.
However, the Cult Of Jeep has become oppressive to me, and I feel that the moment I saw a duck on any Jeep I own I would be consumed by the fires of a thousand hells and lay waste to all around me.
So gimme the Blazer. Its already ratted out, and that’s what a woods truck should be. Some minor work to get it a lil better and off we go.