This is what the Scout was like circa Summer 2001, badly rusting through the floor boards, cab mounts, rockers, rear quarters and more. Hey from far she don’t look too shabby.

In late Summer 2001 I had the floors redone, a rusty door replaced and a new steering wheel put in and swapped out the chrome wagon wheels for some 15×8 black rock crawler wheels.

In Fall 2003 I decided it was time to convert the Scout to a Super Scout II. This model was a factory option from 1977 - 1980. Since my Scout was a 1977 I thought it would be somewhat legit to do. Also, since I was only using the Scout for recreational purposes I thought why not, I like taking the top off in the Summer and having no doors then is nice too. This involved replacing the rear quarters that were rusting with fiberglass, some fiberglass door inserts and some patching of the front quarters as well.

So this is pretty much what the Scout looks like still today, four years later. For four years I have said “I’m going to paint it this year!” Well health reasons, money, time, you name it I had an excuse. Here is a picture from a couple months ago.

After a lot of thought, I realized the conversion experiment was just not working out for me. I mean sure, I love being able to go topless and doorless on a whim, but it really doesn’t make sense living in Colorado and for what I use the Scout for. I really like using the Scout for wheeling and camping and hauling stuff around so I have come to the conclusion that it’s time for it to go back to a regular Scout II. Back to a steel top and doors. Most of all, time to get it painted!

I hope to have a friend of mine do the work, the same guy that did all the other work. I can’t imagine I would still have the Scout today if it weren’t for his excellent body work.

Other than getting it back to “stock” I need to determine what color to paint it and whether or not I want the top painted the same color or a different color.

Stay tuned, and if you have any good ideas let me know.

My Audi has been out of commission for a few weeks now with a broken spring that I am trying to get covered through a warranty. In the mean time I have needed to rely on my trusty old Scout to be my primary form of transportation. I have the bike too, but I can’t ride it every day.

This little rant is about what jackasses drivers are and it’s all related to what you drive. When I drive the Audi, or even the Passat I very rarely if ever get cut off. In the Scout it happens about every 100 ft. What’s even more ridiculous about that is these people do it and they don’t even consider they are cutting off, and typically slamming on their brakes so they don’t rear end someone on, a 30 year old 3 ton truck.

Braking systems were not all that fancy back then and the saying is “He with the most tonnage wins.” Of course this puts me in a bad position because it would be me rear ending Mr/Ms Jackass so then I have to slam on the brakes and lets not forget the guy tailgating me for some unknown reason.

I drive the Scout at least the speed limit in zones 65mph or less, and since my commute never hits the 75 mph zones speed is not a factor. Not to mention I have a lot of torque with my little V8 so I can handle the hills just fine throughout the commute. For some reason as soon as their is a hill people decide to race up on me and pass and cut me off because I can only assume they aren’t expecting me to stay at a constant rate of speed.

In the Audi, I am rarely tailgated and no one questions if I will have enough power.

In the Scout, if I put on my signal well ahead of time people will accelerate to prevent me from coming over. Keep in mind I will not get in the left lane on the highway unless I absolutely have to and even then, I make sure I have ample room. So those rare times that I need to get over (accident, concrete truck going 40mph, etc.), just let me over, you’ll be surprised how quickly I can get back to the speed limit. If these jackasses would not have sped up to prevent me from coming over I could have moved over and their momentum most likely would not have been impeded. Especially when you figure another car ahead of me is just going to slow them down anyway.

With the Audi,I put on my signal and most people let me in.

Now the best part about this, is on the road people treat me with no respect, but these same people will come out of their way in a parking lot to come talk to me about my Scout for 10 minutes.

So lets recap here, if you want to drive like a total jackass go ahead, sooner or later it will wind up being a bad situation for you. I have a test for you, with your typical morning commute go ahead and drive like a total dickwad like you normally do, and time it. Just drive “normal” for you. Now the next day, be courteous, meaning let people in, plan ahead for your exit instead of waiting until the last possible moment. Time that. I think you’ll be surprised to find very little difference at all.

I had a guy cut me off FOUR TIMES on Friday on my way to work, and I mean bad each time. Sure he got way ahead of me. Then as I got off at my final exit for work I rolled up to the light and guess what vehicle was RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME. Not only did he probably increase his stress level and endanger the lives of other drivers, he wasted a lot of fuel and for what…to be at the same spot as me at the same time. Sweet.

Also, if you are going to drive like a jackass, don’t come up and talk to me in a parking lot after being a total fucking dick on the road. I really don’t care what kind of a hurry you were in or how cool you think my “Jeep” (sigh) is. If you have the time to talk to me in the parking lot chances are you aren’t in that big of a hurry.

Last weekend we headed up with some folks from the Rocky Mountain Club B5 car club to flex our 4×4 muscles on the lightly rated St. John trail. We started just outside of Keystone in Montezuma. The trail ascends pretty rapidly getting you above tree line before you know it. I don’t know our exact altitude during the trip but I know we made it over 12,000 feet for a good period of time.

We had four vehicles, my 1977 Scout II, a late model Jeep Wrangler well modified, 1992 Range Rover and a 2006 Ford F250 Superduty monster! It was a family day so there were some kids, spouses, siblings and significant others in tow. We stopped at a few different points along the way to not only see if the weather would hold up for us to eat lunch but to take in the wonderful scenery.

As we got higher and higher we got close and closer to the clouds, to the point where it felt like you could reach out and touch them! We also got to see a herd of Mountain Goats. Looks like they are ditching the Summer coats for something more Winter appropriate.

After spending some time above tree line, checking out a glacier and realizing it was too cold to stop and eat we headed down into the trees and lower elevation so we could stop and eat some lunch and celebrate a birthday.

While eating lunch we were able to check out a cool old cabin, a buried car and an ass load of rusted out old tin cans. I can’t believe I didn’t get a picture of the tin, but I am not exaggerating when I say there were a lot, I would say in the many many hundreds.

You can view the rest of the pictures at Saints John w/ RMCB5.