Well, the article said you had a basic idea worked out. So what do we have to work with?
Right now we are looking at a V-6 Grand Vitara base w/ lockers, axles, gears, etc.. off of the Kick, and turning it into a light weight, powerfull trail rig. Outside of that it is a plan in the making.
Last year I was inspired by riding in Mikes and Blake's rigs in Moab. I loved both of their rides in their own way. Mikes uncompromising trail conquering rig with bullet proof drive line and huge tires, and Blake's fast, low sporty desert blaster that was hanging in there with the bigger rigs on most every obstacle he attacked, and still running mostly stock Sidekick and Samurai parts.
I am thinking a compromise between the two.
Right now the big decisions to be made is how extreme do we go, what to keep off the kick and what to replace, IFS or SAS, tube or frame build, how big of tire, what tires and rims, what seats, etc.... I want a comfortable, fast dependable trail rig that can conquer most everything I try and still be dependable enough that I know I wont regularly break stuff.
Still a lot of questions to answer to get to a final product.
Zig