This month we return to a subject that couldn't be timelier, coming as it does at the start of the summer trail and travel season. Last year, we devoted an entire issue to Trailers and Towing, and since it turned out to be one of the most popular issues of the magazine that we'd published in some time, we're returning to the topic this month. Only this time, we're devoting even more pages to the subject, and expanding our coverage to work-truck-related issues as well as towing and hauling. As it turns out, there's a lot more out there for your truck than we realized.
Astute readers will notice a familiar name cropping up repeatedly in our pages this time-and it's no accident that our own Jimmy Nylund is a frequent contributor to this month's effort. Jimmy has probably forgotten more about trailering and towing than the rest of us combined have ever learned, as he currently owns some 20 different trailers and counts a tandem-axle Peterbilt 359 among his fleet of work rigs. So when we were brainstorming this issue, we asked Jimmy for whatever Neat Stuff he could think of that might be of interest to you, our readers, on the subject of Heavy Hauling and How to Do It Right.
A few weeks later, Jimmy dropped a treasure trove of great tow/haul material on our desks, including a DIY gooseneck hitch installation, a (more or less) easy-to-install dump-bed conversion for GM pickups, and a test of a cool little pack trailer that tips three ways, along with plenty of proven tips to help you hitch up your load, and distribute the weight, safely and securely. We've also got a project trailer of our own that we're now building to haul around our Mega Titan, Teal-J, and other project rigs, and you can see what we've accomplished thus far on page 58.
Something else this month that's cool: Our newest project rig, the 'Con Artist, makes its debut. Ever since we testdrove the new Wrangler JK Unlimited last year, we've been salivating at the prospect of building a long-travel JK four-door that could conquer the Rubicon Trail or the high-speed deserts of Baja with equal aplomb, while still remaining 100-percent street-legal, returning decent fuel mileage, and retaining all the best features of the Rubicon off-road package. After months of obnoxious whining (from us), our good friends at DaimlerChrysler finally consented to give us a JK to build, and the 'Artist takes a bow this month on page 42.
We're also stirring the pot this month with our first-ever rating of "Top 10 Cities" to live for four-wheelers. Our survey is somewhat subjective-and completely unscientific, we might add-but we've compiled a list of affordable urban areas from around the U.S. that are all located within a short drive of plenty of great trails. Did we include your hometown? Check out the story on page 36. Did we miss yours? Drop us a line and tell us why we screwed up. We're always up for a good debate.
Finally, this month we kick off the first installment of our "Tents & Trails" Tour, which is a kind of an evil stepchild of last year's "H2our de Force." For those of you who missed it, last year our in-house comedy duo of Brubaker & Holman spent a couple of weeks wheeling some 4,000 miles across nine different states in a Hummer H2, blogging and belching and behaving badly in general when they weren't out wheeling, which they did every day. They had so much fun (or so they said), they asked if they could do it again, and against our better judgment, we relented anyway.
-Douglas McColloch