Seven Off-Roaders You'll Never See Off the Asphalt

Josh Burns
by Josh Burns

For the automotive aftermarket, SEMA is all about showing off the latest and greatest gear, and more often than not that comes in the form of vehicle builds around the Las Vegas Convention Center. There’s everything from mild to wild, but there’s also plenty of trucks and SUVs that go so far over the top that they reach a level of absurdity.

That leads us to this collection of trucks. Although fitted with suspension lifts and aftermarket wheels, in spite of the aggressive tires these trucks and Jeeps at the 2016 SEMA Show will live their lives on asphalt and never see the dirt.

This Ford F-250 is confusing, and the brown-white color scheme is just the start. Think this thing will every sniff the dirt? Can you imagine the paint repair job for just a short trip down a fire road?

‘Merca. Although the patriotism translates, the upgrades certainly don’t translate to the trail.

Ram this 2500 down the trail and you’ll sand blast the $1,000s of chrome off this truck in no time.

Of all the trucks, this Tundra might have the most realistic shot of getting its tires dirty for a second (you know, like dipping your toes in the pool), but all that painted suspension means it’ll live a life in the garage and the show circuit.

Climb into this Wrangler for a mall trip or cruising main street downtown because the only rocks it will ever see are pebbles on the highway.

This Silverado HD dually is chromed to the nines and is complete with murder wheels.

The Denali badging up front takes cues from the first-gen Ford Raptor, but don’t expect any expect the suspension on this bad boy to flex any further than a few inches for curb climb.

This article originally appeared on Off-Road.com.

[Images: Josh Burns/Off-Road.com]

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  • Mr Imperial Mr Imperial on Nov 03, 2016

    Jeepers call rigs like these "Mall-rated."

  • BigOldChryslers BigOldChryslers on Nov 03, 2016

    When I was a kid, I wanted to run a set of tires like that, or at least the ones on the blue Tundra, on my Tamiya Blackfoot R/C truck to make it look more like a "stadium truck". Running those on a REAL truck, especially one that is also lifted, just looks dumb. However, as Scoutdude pointed out above, the point is probably for vendors to show off their products, which are truck suspension parts, not tires.

  • Carrera I live in Florida and owned summer tires once before on a Corolla. Yes I know, it's a Corolla but it drove much better ( to me) with those on. I would have bought them again but replacement time came during the beginning of the " transitory inflation" and by then, I found all seasons that were much cheaper. Currently I own a slightly more performance oriented Acura TLX -AWD and when the OEM all season Michelin wear out, I will replace them with summer Michelins. Often times, a car comes alive with summer tires but I understand why people don't buy them above South Carolina. I lived in Canada for 5 years and just thinking about swapping twice per year made me anxious.
  • Steve Biro I don’t bother with dedicated summer or winter tires. I have no place to store them. But the newest all-weather tires (with the three-peak mountain symbol) are remarkably good year-round. The best of them offer 90 percent of the performance of winter tires and still fall mid-pack among summer ultra-high performance tires. That’s more than enough for my location in New Jersey.
  • Carfan94 Never, it doesn’t get cold eneough here in TN, to switch to winter tires. But it gets cold enough that running Summer tires year round is impractical. I’m happy with my All seasons
  • Analoggrotto Anyone who has spent more than 15 minutes around a mustang owner would know this will be in insta-hit.
  • Akear If this is true then they won't go out of business. Good for them!
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