THE TROOPER EXPERIENCE

I think it's all been decided as to what kind of vehicle we'll be getting for our Texas Fishing Truck project. First off, Billy Ray's fishing buddy Dan, who is my friend as well but I don't get to hang with him as much as I'd like, has had excellent luck with his early 90's Isuzu Trooper 4x4. Likewise, I've known several folks who put well in excess of 200k miles on their Troopers of this era.

Then I ran into a fellow at the Wal-Mart last week. He had a faded red Trooper, about a 1994, and I asked him how he liked it. He was an elderly retiree, and said he had bought it when he retired as a tow behind vehicle for his RV. Been using it ever since. He had thought on various occasions about getting other vehicles as a tow behind, like a CRV or an Element, which apparently are popular as tow behind RV vehicles. He said that he had not had any real problems with the Trooper and it was hard to sell a truck that wasn't giving you problems.

He said about a third of his miles were "tow behind" miles, and that he'd used his vehicle some for off-roading for fishing and hunting. He said it was light, powerful for what it was engine wise and that he had only gotten stuck once or twice. Although the paint was somewhat faded, you could tell the whole car was in great shape and it sounded strong when he cranked it up. Seems like most red Troopers I see of this age have the paint fade thing going on.

He wasn't interested in selling, but I got his name and gave him one of my cards.

Again, we have faith that providence will provide us with an ideal vehicle with which to base our Texas Fishing Truck on.

Ultimately, we'll run into someone we know, or who knows someone we know, who has an appropriate one or two owner vehicle for sale, with an honest maintenance history and relatively low miles for it's age.