September '02 Issue
While the rockcrawling competition craze was starting to grow, a small shop in Rapid City, South Dakota, came up with their own design for a tube chassis. Jason Paule's Twisted Customs was mostly a paint and airbrush shop, with some random fabrication here and there before Jason built this buggy with some insight from his father, a retired desert and circle-track racer. To this day the basic Twisted Customs chassis design hasn't changed much and continues to win rockcrawling competitions each year. Built around a small-block Chevy V-8, a TH350 automatic transmission, Atlas transfer case, and front- and rear-steering 1-ton axles all stuffed in a 103-inch wheelbase, these chassis are hard to beat whether in competition or just cruising trails. Much of their design has been copied by home shop fabricators.
March '06 Issue
The name Poison Spyder Customs out of Denver, Colorado, is synonymous with Jeep parts, but they also offer a buggy chassis reminiscent of their flagship vehicle, Suicide Sally. Poison Spyder owner Clifton Slay started out as a business associate at Avalanche Engineering before going on his own with Poison Spyder Customs, where he developed the Bruiser Chassis based on what he had learned from his old CJ-7. The Bruiser chassis is a full-tube chassis with a Jeep look to it and Suicide Sally is another new direction in rock buggies where the finished vehicle is as clean as any hot rod out there, but it's built and designed for off-road use. In fact all rock buggies are hot rods in the sense that various parts are put together to best suit the driver's needs, but Suicide Sally has pushed that envelope even more with the show-stopping paint, finish details, and overall wild look. However, fancy paint almost defies one of the purposes of a rock buggy...the lack of a body to make body damage no longer a concern. This doesn't mean Sally is a garage queen. Nope, this pretty lady has already taken some rock rash from the many trails Clifton runs, but we're pretty sure that first scratch was the deepest. Will we ever see rock buggies in car shows with fresh Armor-all on the tires, brightly polished chrome parts, and not a spec of dirt or a scratch to be found? Probably, but we sure hope not. Buggies as well as any 4x4 are meant to be used off road, and Petersen's 4-Wheel & Off-Road has been pushing that cause for 30 years now. Thanks for the support.
August '02 issue
While rockcrawling was growing in popularity across the nation, rock-buggy building didn't necessarily remain out west. In fact, in 2002 we showed a buggy built by Frankie Fountain of Frankie's Off Road in Rainbow City, Alabama, that was as much mud truck as it was rock machine. Frankie built this buggy for Dan Dibble and we're mentioning it because it symbolizes how a lot of the Southeast began building buggies-using Rockwell 2 1/2-ton axles from big military trucks, whereas most of the West Coast stuck to 1-ton axles or smaller. The big axles allow the drivers to use plenty of big-block power, 44-inch or larger tires, and a very heavy right foot. Though these Rockwell-equipped rigs are great for trail riding and extreme obstacles while hauling four or more people and spare gear, their size and weight meant they never really caught on in the competition rockcrawling world.
May '03 Issue
Also in 2003 a little buggy showed up that really threw everyone on their rear. Ex-desert-race-truck designer John Nelson had gone to a rockcrawling competition and thought he could build a better buggy than what was out there, and that year he did. First he got rid of all the extra weight and then he put the engine behind the driver for better visibility and a lower center of gravity. To make the buggy even lighter he decided to use a Volkswagen air-cooled engine. That four-cylinder was extremely hopped up and followed by a two-speed automatic, an Atlas transfer case, and lightweight Currie 9-inch axles. This buggy was known as Tiny and it generated a whole movement of rear-engine competition buggies known as Moon Buggies. Nelson had John Bondurant and Larry McRay drive and spot in his little buggy, while Nelson was the team coach. In 2003 they were a force to be reckoned with. To this day a rear-engine buggy is almost always in the top five finishers in the competitions, whether rockcrawling or rock racing, but for some reason these little lightweight moon buggies rarely show up on the trail. It must be the lack of space for a cooler.
April-June '03 issues
In 2003 BFGoodrich realized the popularity of rock buggies and decided to give one away. In conjunction with 4-Wheel & Off-Road, BFGoodrich sponsored a contest where readers could enter to win a replica buggy of Jon Gilleland's Karnivore competition rock buggy. Built by Avalanche Engineering and outfitted with Dynatrac axles and an Atlas transfer case, it was pretty cool to see the rock-buggy trend going mainstream enough that a major sponsor was using one in its advertising program.