We realize that some of you might just be getting into the sport. Others are maybe picking up our magazine in the grocery store for the first time. The rest of you, our old faithfuls, might just be getting ready to get yet another 4x4. This guide is for all of you. We basically compiled this story to give you a roundabout (read: average!) price on a vehicle and what key attributes to look for. Realize that of course, the better your deal, the more likely the chance that it might have been whomped harder than you thought or the rust on the framerail might be holding the spring hangers on. But then again, we know some of you have this friend that knows a guy...
Some might not agree with one of our choices or might feel like we left something out, but we had good reason to choose the vehicles we did. We made our selections based upon availability throughout North America, general reliability, cost analysis, and what would start as a good basis for a project with a wide range of aftermarket manufacturers to support it.
Now before you start your letters and/or other hate-mail, we realize that we did in fact leave many details like every axle selection and available transmission out of this story. We did so because of the wide variety of offerings between years and model availability. To list every offering and option would take every page in this magazine. Instead we highlighted what we thought might be lesser-known points or be key reasons for buying one rig over another. For example, the '86 and '87 GM 1-ton trucks obviously both have heavy-duty drivetrains, but only one offers fuel injection. OK, now you can go back to writing your hate letters, and see if you can get our names right this time.