I’m not sure what started it, but we’re giving serious consideration to selling the LJ in favor of, well, something else. Quite possibly a Jeep Commander, which would promptly get a 4″ lift and bigger tires. One can get a great deal on a Commander right now, and it would (with modifications) be suitable to both the hardcore off-road capabilities I demand and the gentle on-road luxuries we’d like. It could be a great long-term solution for the growing family.
Nothing is for certain yet, since leaving behind my “real” Jeep — a soft-top utilitarian rig — is a leap that’s tough for me to take. We’ll see. I did test-drive a Commander yesterday, and I found it far less “boat-y” than I expected such a big rig to be.
The Wife rolls her eyes at me, but it also has not gone unnoticed by me that the Commander is near to the same scale as the Land Rover Series 109″ vehicles, which were modified into awesome things like the Dormobile back in the dim days before my birth. It’s probable that there are steel crossbeams in the roof to prevent me from doing it, but I’m not just a little tempted to get a Commander and start planning to cut most of the roof out. Add in some fiberglass molding, some canvas making, a lot of blood, sweat, tears, and foul words … and one might have the modern equivalent of the beauty picture here. Sweet, eh?
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Actually, you can buy just the roofcap from Dormobile UK – good luck with fitting it to a Commander roof.
If you’re into LR’s try looking at the LR3/LR4 – they did a comparison of the Commander vs. LR3 on the Discovery channel a few years ago called The Transatlantic Challenge. The LR3 came out on top – easily.
Interesting that you can purchase the roofcap separately.
The new ‘Rovers are great machines. No question about it. My brother has an LR3, and it’s impressive. Alas, I think comparing one directly to a Commander is a bit unbalanced given a price difference that runs to 5 digits. Reminds me of those “Hummers are better than Wranglers” comparisons that came out several years ago. It was certainly true under certain conditions (not all), but it was also true that you could buy 3 Wranglers for the price of a Hummer!
Actually they compared a lr3 base v8 vs the hemi commander. The commander was actually 2 grand more than the lr3.
Wrt Dormobiles I am restoring one now. Check out ‘current projects’ link on http://www.landroversalvage.ca
Nice restore going on there, Don. Good stuff. Good luck.