QOTD: Can You Build an Ideal Crapwagon Garage? (Part VI: SUVs)

In our creatively organized Crapwagon Garage, we’ve seen varied body styles like wagons and trucks. Today we’re going to pick out some truckwagons, which you may know as SUVs.

Let’s pick out four or five four-by-fours for cheap.

But first, I’ve perused last week’s coupe comments for the Forgotten Gem Award:

An easy choice, and one I should’ve remembered. It’s Ajla’s number one selection, the 1992 Oldsmobile Toronado Trofeo. At over 200 inches in length, the full-size final Toronado featured flip-up headlamps and an interior full of CRT digital goodness. They’re hard to find in good condition, but it can certainly be done. And it’s sure to always run, as it is blessed by GM 3800.

Time for today’s SUVs, so let’s look at the rules:

1. A crapwagon must be a vehicle which is relatively easy to find and purchase using an internet.
2. All vehicles in the crapwagon garage must have been sold as new, in the North American market.
3. Said vehicles must be obtainable to the casual crapwagon collector (CCC). This means in clean, running condition each one asks $7,000 or less on a normal day.
4. Your suggestions must fit into the vehicle category of the week. If you don’t like the category, that’s tough. We’ll get to a category you like eventually.
5. There are five rules to this garage game, and that’s the maximum number of vehicles you may submit for each section. Just five.

In order to be considered an SUV, a vehicle must have a rear cargo area covered by a roof, and a vertical liftgate or swinging rear door. For our purposes, it must also have been offered with either all-wheel drive or four-wheel drive. Vehicles with sliding side doors do not qualify as SUVs. My first pick was an easy one.

It’s the first generation Lexus LX450. A thinly-broughamed inline-six Land Cruiser which was always loaded with options, it usually featured gold badges and two-tone paint. Just as capable as its Toyota brother, it came from a time when luxury SUVs outside of the Range Rover were still an experiment. Well-heeled owners hung onto these, and they’re not too hard to find in great condition.

Here’s my second choice, the final North American Mitsubishi Montero from 2006. Comfortable and capable, it had the veneer of luxury Mitsubishi thought necessary to compete with other luxury truck offerings of the time. It’s just as well, since Mitsubishi had the gall to ask $47,000 for the Montero Limited. Most of these have been beat up, and people like Gtem tell me that parts aren’t the easiest to find — but that doesn’t stop my Montero desire. Special nod to the simply gigantic glass sunroof present on all models without rear DVD player. I’d find the cleanest one I could, and it would still be within budget.

Let’s hear your SUV Crapwagon Garage picks.

[Images: JLR, sellers, Lexus]