"Bling" or "Business"

[BioHazard]

Salisbury Plain is great - we did a few tours their in 2011. The Surf was amazing in those Bombholes!!

We try to go out when visitng parents in Calne

Next time your here let me know , i might show you a few new routes

[shokenore]

The Winch Bumpers are Defender ones. I will have to take some pictures for you. The centre section of the Surf bumper is cut out( just inside each headlamp) and the Winch Bumper is then fitted inside the Surf chassis rails with spacers to make it fit! It is both practical and functional. Indicators are then fixed to the outer sections of the Surf Bumpers at a point to shine through the winch bumper. You may be able to see the surf bumper profile on L20LTT as it still has chrome bumpers.

What is the colour of the right hand truck ?

[muddle]

I think a meet is in order! Hows boxing day? Any one fancy leading....

[Svenb]

Salisbury plain on boxing day? Yes please!

[yoshie]

Been Offroading in my Surfs now for three years, arranging events, leading tours and mixing with several off road groups. Very occasionally I see another Surf, not often enough though. I see Mitsi's (Pajero's Shogun's L200s and Suzuki's, Jeeps and of course Land Rovers of every shape size and hybridisation possible. My Surfs regularly surprise these other owner groups with their off road ability (even in standard form) and often attract comments about their reliability and functionality. But almost every other Surf I see is so "bling" I wonder why? Surely they are as capable as all of the others, so why is there such a reluctance to get them dirty regularly and get them out of the shadow of their big brother? Winch Bumpers for Land Rovers can be adapted to fit to save the astronomical cost of OEM or TJM.

Just an observation!

Anyone want to share their thoughts?

My thought's are you have not read the forum, plenty of Surfs go off road given that this is a Hilux Surf owners forum and not an off road specific forum.

Just an observation!

[gwh200]

@Apace.
Hey Andy ... happy days they were! The original poo mobile was a feckin awesome old tub. And I believe it was blackpool sparks who messed his dondies on the happy valley.
Getting kinda nostalgic here !

[Wolfracer]

Bling and business!

My business tool, off road toy and hopefully a shiny club member by next year... ;

[Apache]

@Apace.
Hey Andy ... happy days they were!

Indeed they were Gra!

Those weekends in Wales were superb at times. Plenty of grog, plenty of laughs. Getting lost where it's not possible to get lost with Captain Chaos, nearly lopping off my finger, listening to duelling banjos whilst camped amongst the trees in Alabama... errr Hay-on-Wye, the look of abject terror on the white as a sheet face of Goran after his first experience of Happy Valley - all expertly led by that sheep-shagger extraordinaire, Boyo!

and it wasn't just Wales... there's my truck half way through a river in north central Spain.

[shrek]

great that would help got 2 winches to fit

[Jimpics57]

Read the Forum!

Aint got time to read the forum - offroad every weekend!!

I guess there aren't too many offroad surfs down in my neck of the woods then!!

Will get some piccies of the winch bumper mounts this weekend shrek.

[muddle]

Fancy organising a boxing day meet?

[Sancho]

Jim, the question you're asking is far more interesting than people think, in that they all just respond by telling you that they offroad their surfs.

That may be the case, but I think you're also asking why so many don't offroad their surfs. Well, the first thing to look at is the words next to the + sign here:

http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/carbycar...lux-surf-1984/

That's a step, but the thoughtful man might then consider why that should be true. My thoughts are that hiluxes hit a spike in demand when dear Mr Clarkson 'proved' that one was 'indestructible'.

Putting aside for one second that no other vehicles were tested in the same way so the whole exercise was nonsense, this meant that lots of people wanted a hilux because they're tough. Next up, they went on ebay and found out that hiluxes are kind of expensive, especially if you want a crew cab so that you can your kids places with you. What they also found, though, was that a Surf, which appeared to be the same as the indestructible hilux but had a roof, was cheaper. They then also noticed that the mileages were quite low (without considering that they would be clocked).

Bingo! Lots of people bought surfs.

Once people had surfs, their friends found out about them, but also found that they are comfy and actually quite pleasant to drive. More people bought surfs.

Then everyone decided they wanted to 'customise' their surf and that required bling. Mud tyres and 35s for driving to Asda were readily available, but we needed snorkels to look cool on our drive and rock sliders so that we didn't need to find the jacking points. Most importantly, we needed bigger, shinier, bull bars for when we needed to kill kids at ten miles an hour.

We started asking around, we started going on ebay, we tried changing the settings to international. We found some stuff. We said 'hey, if I import this stuff and sell it on, I'll be minted' - so we did.

Suddenly, lots of people supplied accessories for surfs. People realised that weird brake lights could make a truck look just like a Lexus. It became essential to buy a spoiler, ideally one with a special mirror so that you could see the back bumper (slightly) whilst reversing.

Then, one day, the cylinder heads started to go and that nasty Mr Brown (remember him?) said that he wanted more tax from people who drive around belching smoke, and even more from those whose smoke he didn't bother measuring.

Next, that nasty Mr Goodwin (remember him?) said 'oops, we're bankrupt' and the UK economy plummeted. Suddenly, buying old cars from Japan didn't make sense anymore and we were left with what's already in the country.

Lots of people got worried about their cylinder heads going and didn't want to pay the tax. So they returned their surfs to ebay where they found them. This time, they were much cheaper. Apart from the ones with the shiny bits on. It seemed that, if we simply put some shiny bits (or a Jack Wolfskin sticker) on our vehicles, they became exponentially more valuable.

But who was going to buy all these surfs with shiny bits? Who could possibly want something that was expensive to run and covered in accouterments? Kids. On Council Estates.

And who started buying all the cheap surfs without the toys? Kids. On Council Estates. Why? Because there is a ready supply of bling to go on them.

So, to answer your question, why so many blingy surfs? I would say that the reasons are twofold:

1. There was a brief period where they were extremely popular and generated enough mass in the market to warrant specific bling being made for them.

2. Because there is specific bling made for them, people will buy them to bling them up.

[GBV8]

so why is there such a reluctance to get them dirty regularly and get them out of the shadow of their big brother?

Because it takes to long to clean it and get it all blingy again.

[slobodan]

Sancho speaks for the Muswell hill intelligentnia.

[shokenore]

Sancho speaks for the Muswell hill intelligentnia.

Is there a big demand for import 4x4's in that neck of the woods?