4×4 Garage Is Back! The Team at Four Wheeler Is Making a New 4×4 Video Series

Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, and this company conveyed the majority of its storytelling by spraying ink onto dead trees, then selling the finished products as tangible periodicals of which you could dog-ear a page, newsstand sales contributed substantially to our corporate bottom line. So much so, in fact, that during the early 2000s the company was always looking for another idea to turn into a title they could sell through their newsstand distribution.  That’s how I wound up launching a new brand.

It was 2003 and then-Publisher John Steward (former editor of Four Wheeler magazine) and Editorial Director Doug McColloch (also former editor of Four Wheeler) got the idea to create a 4×4-themed, newsstand-only title. They invited me to John’s office overlooking Angel Stadium to hear any ideas I had on the subject. No sooner had I arrived than they whisked me out of the building to an executive lunch at a high-class joint called Hooters. Between the mediocre chicken wings and unremarkable burgers the three of us devised and outlined what would soon become our company’s new tech-based 4×4 SIP (special interest publication). We had a couple of working titles, but nothing that really captured the entirety of what the new publication would be about. It was actually my wife, that night, who said, “why not just call it 4×4 Garage?” Winner, winner, Hooters chicken dinner!

And so, while still serving as tech editor of Jp Magazine, I set about writing almost an entire issue of 4×4 Garage myself (though I did manage to con one or two of my coworkers into doing stories for me that the editor of the books they worked for wouldn’t green-light, like a Banks turbo installation Fred Williams did on his horrendously slow CUCV 6.2-liter diesel). This was all assembled and published as a winter 2004 issue, and it did really well, but for reasons I can’t recall it was a couple more years before we came out with the second issue, which I put together in 2007 and sold on newsstands for a few months in 2008. That issue hit like a sledgehammer, and soon the company was putting a 4×4 Garage SIP out on the newsstands a couple times a year. Only by then, I had moved up to being editor of Jp Magazine and others were editing 4×4 Garage.

Related: Subscribe to the MotorTrend YouTube Channel today!

Fast-forward to about two months ago and, bang, I’m invited to a meeting about a new tech-based 4×4 video series show called … you guessed it … 4×4 Garage! So now I’ve sorta come full-circle, serving as host of MotorTrend’s new 4×4 Garage video series. I don’t want this to be a super-polished fluff piece in which parts magically fall onto completely pristine and perfectly prepped vehicles. Here’s the unvarnished truth: I’m not perfect. The stuff I do doesn’t always work out perfectly. Aftermarket parts aren’t always built perfectly. Sh!% goes wrong, and when it does, I don’t wanna hide it from y’all on this show. I’m not looking to make myself out to seem like a total clown who can’t work a screwdriver, but I also don’t want to magically star-wipe away the warts that come with building 4x4s. The first episode of this new show will be dropping on MotorTrend’s YouTube Channel on April 30, so be sure to check it out.

We’re prepping a buddy’s 1988 Bronco with some relatively simple bolt-on parts so he can take it on Overland Adventure. Simple, right? Well, with today’s manufacturing shortages and supply chain hiccups, we actually started filming before any of the parts had landed. Then, the diffs to regear the Dana 44 TTB and 8.8-inch rear got delayed after we had torn the Bronco apart. And because we had to get the vehicle out of our borrowed lift bay at the SEMA Garage in Diamond Bar, California, between shooting the first and second episodes, we wound up assembling the front without the drive components. Like I said, warts and imperfections. But I promise you it’ll all be real and relevant, just like the print version of this magazine was. So tune in if you wanna and check it out. I’ll be posting updates on my @hbombindustries Instagram account as the build unfolds.

“4XForward” is the monthly column of the Petersen’s 4-Wheel & Off-Road brand, penned by editor-in-chief Christian Hazel. It’s a fun, if not slightly warped, rabbit hole of random thoughts from Hazel’s noggin, often assembled into a cohesive comparison or metaphor related to off-roading. Send feedback to [email protected] or hit him at @hbombindustries on Instagram.

Watch! Car Craft Challenger Build: Episode 1

If you like the idea of 4×4 Garage as a new video series, check the revival of the Car Craft brand! HOT ROD magazine Editor-in-Chief John McGann and Kevin Tetz are working on a 1972 Dodge Challenger, and you can check out episode 1 below! When you’re done with that, watch episode 2 and episode 3 of the ’72 Challenger build!

Hot Reads

  • Immaculate, Top Flight Winning 1965 Chevy Corvette Sting Ray Up for Grabs
  • $300 Junkyard Buy to Ridler Award: 1931 Chevy Coupe Takes The 2022 Detroit Autorama’s Top Trophy
  • New Video Series: 4×4 Garage Comes Out of Retirement!
  • Jolly Green Giant-Killer: 1974 Porsche 911 3.0 RSR IROC Rewind Review

Source: Read Full Article