QOTD: What's Your '20-Year Game' Vehicle of Choice?

Spending pre-internet years living in a place where everything worth seeing, doing, or buying was an hour away, necessity dictated the invention of games to stave off boredom during yet another mind-numbing trip to civilization. Games of “Count the Potholes” were always popular, but the most creative was the “20-Year Game.” Here’s how to play:

Recall the year you turned 20 years of age. Not 20 yet? Go read Jalopnik. Got your year? Good. Now, choose a vehicle from that model year. Any vehicle you like — but here’s the catch: it has to last you for the another 20 years, serving you through all the minutiae of life. Keep in mind, you’ll have to maintain the thing, keep it in fuel, pay for insurance, not to mention signing the note for it in the first place.

For me, the choice is easy. In 2000, the Jeep Cherokee was still an agricultural thing, with a dead nuts reliable 4.0-liter inline-six under the hood and off-road prowess challenged only by the Wrangler and certain mountain goats. Chiseled good looks and an interior designed with a t-square made it macho and about as complicated as an anvil. If the Gunslinger character from Stephen King’s Dark Tower books had a vehicular equivalent, this’d be it. With a few essential comforts such as air conditioning and a trailer hitch, a Y2K Cherokee would show a price of about $25,000 (non-inflation adjusted) American dollars on its Monroney.

Even fresh off the showroom floor in 2000, this thing was easy to work on and future parts availability was virtually guaranteed by dint of it being in production essentially unchanged for 16 years by the turn of the millennium. Add in space for a family plus enough macho swagger to warrant not cashing in my Man Card and the 2000 Jeep Cherokee makes my selection easy.

What’s yours? Choose wisely.