It was about the time we were sideways around the corner, with the traction and stability control futilely attempting to rein us in while beeping its displeasure at our antics, that we vaguely remembered legendary racer Ivan "Ironman" Stewart's last words to us only minutes before when handing us the keys-something to the effect of, "Have fun, and watch the throttle." Well, watching the throttle is easier in theory than in practice when you have 550 lb-ft of supercharged torque under your right, supplied by a TRD blower. It was unspoken, but Ivan knew, just as we did during the hand-off of the keys that hoonage would immediately ensue in this unsupervised drive.

We just returned from a couple of days in the West Texas hill country near San Antone, where we wheeled Suzuki's newest incarnation of the Grand Vitara, as well as its new Equator pickup. Long story short: one behaved on the trail exactly as we expected, while the other was a pleasant surprise.

Back in the late '70s you could buy a Ford F-150 with a coil-sprung Dana 44 front axle, a Ford 9-inch rearend, and a frame that could bear weight beyond the 1/2-ton designation. This vintage of the F-150 was often heralded for its built-tough mechanicals and lauded for the over-built engineering. For 2009, Ford continues the trend with its improved F-150 that again widens the gap with class-leading payload, towing, and improved fuel economy, while narrowing the gap between the F-150 and F-250 Super Duty.

It's a tough time to be selling pickup trucks of any kind right now, and if you've been in the business as long as the folks at Dodge have, your likely reaction to a sharp economic downturn might be to batten down the hatches, hold onto your market share, and try to ride out the storm as best you can. But with new versions of the Chevy Silverado, Toyota Tundra, and 2009 Ford F-150 all trumpeting major changes in pickup-truck technology over the past 18 months, the folks at Chrysler knew they had to do something to keep the slightly stodgy Ram competitive and attractive in an increasingly squeezed 1/2-ton pickup segment. The most recent fruit of their labors is the new-for-'09 Dodge Ram-available in two wheelbases, with long- and shortbeds, and in three cab configurations-and long story short, it is an across-the-board improvement over the old truck in every measurable way. And it's not too bad looking, either, if we say so ourselves.

While the FJ Cruiser was a big hit with consumers when it debuted, our first impression of Toyota's premier trail rig was positive, but mixed, voting the FJ Cruiser a third-place finisher in the 2007 Four Wheeler of the Year competition within a crowded field of contenders. While the staff was amazed at the FJ's ride and handling, cargo capacity, and comfort in the dirt and on the highway, they found the styling and some functionality a mixed bag, including the suicide-style rear doors, a smallish back seat, and box-van visibility. To help us understand and get to know the FJ Cruiser, the folks at Toyota graciously offered to let us have one of their last limited-production TRD models in inventory to test for an entire year-assuring us that once we lived with one, we would be as enthusiastic as all of the FJ Cruiser owners.

The fullsize Nissan Titan has always impressed our staff. In the case of the latest variant, sporting the distinguishing Pro-4X badging, our crew is happy to reemphasize the elation we reported during our initial evaluation. It's just a shame that our once-favored Pickup Truck of the Year winner as we know it is slated for the chopping block as Nissan has decided to partner with Dodge for the next generation Titan platform.

Say the word "gator" in many southern states, and folks will start looking around nervously. For the rest of us living outside of alligator country, the word "gator" makes us think of a green and yellow machine by the same name that has helped to revolutionize the side-by-side vehicle industry.

FIRST LOOK: 2009 KIA BORREGO

We recently traveled to Fresno, California, to meet up with the Hummer engineering team for a few days of testing, wheeling, and camping with 2009 H3T prototypes, and it would take more than a cooler full of warm steaks to ruin our fun.

Honda has introduced a slew of new products for '08. Heck, they've even offered a sneak peek at a rockin' new '09 side-by-side. With a desk full of choices, we couldn't decide which one to feature so we decided to spotlight three of what we think are the coolest new products from the folks at Honda.

Historically speaking, the Germans have always been associated with great beer, fast cars, and inarguable attention to detail. And in the case of the German-owned General Tire brand, the latter still holds true today. We recently took a trip to one of General Tire's cold-weather test facilities near Montreal, to evaluate the marriage of high-tech sipe technology and tire compound advancements. The venue was an abandoned airfield appropriately covered in snow and ice. Our goal was to experience first-hand the difference between a standard all-season tire and General's latest light-truck and SUV offering: the Grabber HTS.

Most of the time, auto show "concept" vehicles are a bust. As a rule, they are made to look good on a display stand, and that's it. So it is unusual that a manufacturer would ask us if we would actually like to drive a few. Which is what Jeep did last March, taking us to a New Jersey parking lot on a grey, blustery spring morning for a little urban 'wheeling. There were seven past concept vehicles on hand for us to experience. We tried them all, but the Hurricane made the trip worthwhile.

Livin' the opulent, high-profile life of an affluent musician or professional athlete isn't normally part of our world. This is partly due to our shocking absence of wealth. It may also have something to do with the fact that we blow chunks at most sports and we can't sing worth a crap. Nevertheless, we recently got to experience what it's like on the other side of the bottle of Cristal when our peeps in the 313 hooked us up with a dope '04 Cadillac Escalade ESV Platinum Edition. As you can tell, it went straight to our empty heads.

Can't make up your mind which utility vehicle to buy? Well, let us complicate things for you. This is the brand-new Kawasaki Teryx 4x4 LE, and as you can see, it's totally bad (in a good way). It's unique because it boasts an eclectic combination of sporty ATV genes and working utility-vehicle traits, and the two coexist quite nicely.

The next-generation Toyota Land Cruiser debuted in these pages last November, and as you probably could've guessed, that meant that an all-new Lexus equivalent would be making an appearance soon afterward. And while it's assembled at the same Toyota Auto Body plant in Yoshiwara, Japan,as the Land Cruiser, the new LX 570 fullsize SUV is not merely a repackaged Toyota. With its own exterior sheetmetal, ultra-lux interior trim, and some trick new suspension technology, the LX deserves to be treated as a force in its own right.

The second generation of the Yamaha Rhino debuts into a very different market than the one that greeted its predecessor in 2004. The side-by-side vehicle is no longer an anomaly. With several competitors since launching models of this type, it may easily become the dominant body style in the years to come. The "why" of this is obvious; the easy-to-drive automotive style appeals to everyone-it carries two comfortably and costs almost the same as a single-rider machine. And, no one has to take a backseat to the driver.

It's been a love affair from the get-go-from the first time we testdrove one (Dec. '06), we used words such as "seamless," "muscular," and "light years ahead" to describe its characteristics. Since then, we've 'wheeled the JK Rubicon all over the world-literally, from Zambia to Zzyzx-and we've never failed to be impressed with its unsurpassed trail manners, regardless of terrain. It's the primary reason we named it our 2007 Four Wheeler of the Year, and now, last year's champ returns to our stable as year-long test mule.

Hard to believe a year has gone by and our 2006 H3 has returned to its Detroit home (but not before acting as a support vehicle for Hummer's PR team in Mexico, retracing the original Baja 500 route). Our H3 replaced the H2 SUT in our fleet and we were excited to see what it was like to live with the then-new H3 for a year.

After enduring a brutal winter at our Midwest Bureau in northern Illinois, things didn't get much easier for our long-term Land Cruiser after the bulk of winter had passed. Over the course of several weekends in early spring, it carried us to Vintage Iron and Design in Monroe, Wisconsin, so we could complete the body restoration on our Project "Fiery Redhead." Early spring in Wisconsin is a mixed bag of mega-weather. Some weekends were monsoon-like, some were ultra-frigid, and some were blizzard-like. Throughout all of the inclement weather, the big LC carried us safely and in the lap of luxury with nary a complaint.

Pickup trucks are icons of Americana, as entrenched in our culture as Mom's meatloaf, baseball, and warm apple pie, but to some people they also reflect the alleged overdosing of Americans on the extreme. "Who needs such vehicles?" they ask. Whether you are a city slicker bringing your prized mutt to the dog park, an enthusiast hauling his dirt bikes to the local OHV area, or a rancher towing his horse trailer, pickup trucks fill a practical need in all walks of life. And when there is one in your driveway, all your neighbors know you as the go-to guy. You'll enjoy new popularity and fame when someone needs to bring drywall home or pick up a new couch. Even your eco-snob neighbor is bound to ask to borrow the keys when he doesn't want to dirty up his Prius with a fresh-cut 9-foot Christmas tree. Yes, having a pickup truck will grant you newfound status as the neighborhood hero, and we'll show which is the best one for 2008.

Last year, Land Rover unveiled the LR3 (Discovery 3, in Euro-speak), a midsize luxury 4x4 SUV that marked the company's first all-new offering as a member of the Ford stable. Based on a two-piece hydroformed chassis code-named T5, the LR3 boasted such new developments as four-wheel independent air suspension and a dial-actuated "Terrain Response" four-wheel-drive system, that allows the driver to literally tune the vehicle's performance parameters to best suit the terrain at hand.

In our January '05 issue, we crowned the new-for-'05 Dodge Power Wagon winner of our coveted Pickup Truck of the Year award. It's no wonder, since the Power Wagon is equipped from the factory with the strong 5.7L Hemi V-8 engine, five-speed automatic transmission, solid axles, taller suspension, 4.56:1 gears, front and rear lockers (with rear limited-slip), an electronically disconnecting front sway bar, Bilstein socks, 33-inch BFG All-Terrain T/A tires, forged Alcoa wheels, rock rails, full skidplating, Warn winch, and a real-life transfer-case lever. Try saying that in one breath. The Dodge Power Wagon is the epitome of the American fullsize truck, and we wouldn't change a thing about this truck, short of throwing a set of 35s on it.

We are very familiar with the Hummer brand and the Hummer line of vehicles, especially after putting a few H1s, H2s, and H3s through their paces-some more than others. There is something about a stock fullsize SUV on 35s with a locker and rock rails that keeps us coming back for more, no matter how many we might see trolling the streets on 22s with low-profile tires. Hummers aren't just for the street, are they? We thought it would be fun to see what it would be like to live with a Hummer H2, and we especially liked the SUT version with the mini-bed, so we made a call to Hummer and convinced them to send us one, sans running boards, for a yearlong test.

We have a dirt bike in our office. It's true, really. Our truck wouldn't fit through the sliding glass doors, so we rolled our bike in. Talk about ambience ...

Toyota recently invited us to North Carolina to view the all-new 2008 Sequoia. Based upon the now truly fullsize Tundra pickup, the new Sequoia is equally fullsized and larger in every way from its predecessor. With a wheelbase up almost 4 inches to 122, and overall width, height, and length bulging around an inch each, this new super-sizer is every bit a match for GM's Tahoe/Yukon and Ford's Expedition.