Enter the Truggy. Take one part rolled Ranger that's been written off an insurance company and sold as scrap, one part swamp buggy (the utility type, not the racing kind. If you don't know the difference, it's not terribly important. Ever since TNN stopped being The Nashville Network I don't even know if swamp buggy races get tv time anymore), and one part electrician/welding torch, and you get this:

The chassis, front fenders and hood, and engine is all stock. The dash looks like it's what was there when they got it, but my brother-in-law (the electrician) apparently worked a minor miracle with the rats nest that used to be inside it. The bed, all the decking, the buckboard seat (as my mother calls it) and the deck/sunshade above the driver/passenger seats are all original. The railing around everything up top is a stock pipe rack that my father sells at the store (he just happened to have one extra that fit a Ranger. Yaright.) The seats are from the full on swamp buggy they have at the moment, which got brand new seats in the process. It's done for the most part, but they'll probably spend another year tinkering with it and adding bells and whistles in their spare time. I might have to look into getting it an ahugha horn for Christmas. :)

It doesn't have a name yet--Truggy seems to be more of a classification than a name (You got your truck in my buggy!), but from what I understand it might end up being in part of the full name. I don't know if they've named the buggy yet either, but the one my father built when I was growing up (which was much, much larger than what they have now--the current one is based off a Jeep chassis I think, the older one was something like an old Suburban or Blazer chassis) was named 'Claim Jumper', which I have always loved, and will be the name of a ship or something when I ever get around to writing something. :)

And the creature in the last pic is Lucy the Beagle, Priestess of the Impossible Tongue.

Anyway, I thought some of the gearheads here might appreciate something this off-center. :) I could try to get and post more pics of the buggy and Claim Jumper if there's interest.

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"saaaausaaaage... "
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Chad Collier
Digital Bitch
J. Random VFX Company

Beagle!!

--G.
beagle semi-owner
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Netadmin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

D-amn. That is one funky vehicle. My compliments to its creators. :)

>Ever since TNN stopped being The Nashville Network I don't even know
>if swamp buggy races get tv time anymore)

Man... now you've reminded me how much I miss watching the swamp buggy races. :)

>And the creature in the last pic is Lucy the Beagle, Priestess of the
>Impossible Tongue.

Aww. Cute. :)

--truss.

Here's the buggy they have now, for reference sake. Upon getting this pic, I suddenly remembered that it's a scratch built chassis and not from a Jeep, but the size comparison is the same. They bought this one already built and ran some modifications over it. Personally, the few times I've been on it it's felt precarious and tippy to me (you'll see why in a second). It's still fun though.

This is why I think that one feels a little dinky (it's hard to tell from the above picture because there's nothing for scale, but that's the steering wheel jutting out in the center, so if I had to guess I'd say it's about half the length of Claim Jumper <pictured below>):

I loved that thing--it was like having our own sail barge. Apologies for the quality of the last one. It's been on the wall of dad's shop for years now, but I thought it was a cool, mean-looking action shot. :) That's Dad, btw. And that's probably his 30.06 with him, since it's not a black powder rifle. The shots are all at or near our old hunting camp in Central Florida, probably ~15 years ago. We still have acess to that land, or a chunk of it anyway. The camp is pretty much toast now, but they have a trailer out there to take care of that now, and less guys to share the land with, so it all works out.

And just for grins, this was our last airboat. He used to build them when we had a camp out in the Everglades, and he bought this one from a friend a while back and fixed it up. It's at a show here, and it won several awards while he had it. It got sold not to long ago so they could start back on new buggy projects, but he sold it to another friend, so we can still borrow it. :)

Ok, that's it. Apologies again if this is out of place, but I thought it'd be appreciated here. :)

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"saaaausaaaage... "
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Chad Collier
Digital Bitch
J. Random VFX Company

<bad redneck impersonation>

Wha'r the heck's the gunrack?

</ bad redneck impersonation>

___________________

Vaughn doesn't know I exist. I guess this explains why the rest of reality keeps ignoring me as well. >_<