Hey, thanks all... great advice so far, I am 5'11 155lbs. so I should probably really sit in the drivers seat to really see if I am comfortable. I like the idea that they are cheaper to lift, and overall I think they look cooler, (no offence to sidekicks) and they have solid axles which is a bonus I'd say.

Make sure if you sit in a sammy it has different seats than stock the stock seats suck. I put Neon seats in mine and to date has been the best improvement for me.
5'9" 265  with a 52" inch chest. So I'm not a small boy by any means.

But there are more track/kicks to pick from since they only imported about 20,000 Samurai's

For me it was a simple choice......

There are NO LIFTED MODDED SAMURAI's in Northern Kentucky.......

SO I had to have one.

this is my third sammy over the last 15 years and i wouldnt sell it unless i had a line on a 1995 cherry sammy that i could build from the ground up.  THere was one on Ebay, but it was in philly and sold for too much to make it worth investing another 3-4 grand in a lift and engine swap etc.....

I have nothing against trackers, i see a ton of them all over the place with their cute little foam graphix and hub caps.....:-)

  Build a sammy, more parts, more help and are more up to wheeling than a kick. You take the same amount of money for wheeling mods for a kick and use them for a zuk instead, and you would have a way more capable sammy.

rkteckt that is one NICE samurai! I really like that one, what size tires are you running on that machine? Do you use that as a DD?

well, before i bought my vit, i looked at about 10 or 15 sierras, within a price range. i had my mind set in getting a sierra, and thats what i was looking for. but hardly any of them appealed to me.

then, the very first vitara i looked at, i bought. it just felt right, even though the vits condition was worse than some of the sierras i looked at.

anyway, go with what feels right. look at it, drive it, look at it, and go with the flow.

with tech now, the sierra is the way to go if you want a real bad a$$ trail rig, as mods are easy to do. SPOA, RUF, SR, Yota Diffs etc etc etc. easy peasy. theres a lot of support for the sierra. ride quality is what you make it, and cab size is little to be desired.

with a vit, parts are less readily available, more fabrication work for custom parts and installs etc etc. spacious interior lets you stretch out, and not feel so confined. ride quality starts off good from factory, and as things are, can always get better from there on.

i havent regretted a single minute i've had with my vit.

good luck, and heres a couple of pics.

There are NO LIFTED MODDED SAMURAI's in Northern Kentucky.......

That's a myth spread by the jeepers.  They're there!  But yours is a fine representative!

In my mind sami is the only way to go if you wont it for offroading only you just cant kill the damn things. their as thouh as your grandmas hamburgersteak when ya was a kid.

Man were all argueing what zuk is better. The fact is there are zuks and thats what makes them great. I have had sammis and kicks. i even have a xl7 the main point is i love all of them. They are great off road machines no matter which one you own and they have a own little culture to them. I guess you have to own one to know.  But i have yet to see a zuk a i didn't want to take home with me.

Yes my Sammy is a Daily Driver.....in fact i use it to run business errands to save gas and wear on my avalanche.

I have hauled bags of cement, tools, even a door that needed glass repaired. Even Better I can drive right up to the side of the buildings im working on or delivering too, no matter how steep the yard is.

Im planning to do a 1.6 16v swap and to replace the cheap SPOA with a Calmini 5.5 shackle reverse lift.....which will hopefully give me back expressway speed and handling.

The tires measure 30 inches in diameter, but there is no indication on them what size they are.

I am sure there must be other lifted Sammys near me, but in 17 years of looking i have never seen one.

on a side note, if you want to use your sammy for a light duty work truck (very light duty) you can get a front and rear hitch mount bumper set, and then add cargo bed extenders from Do-It-Best to both front and rear, it will let you carry ladders and lumber on top from time to time.

There is also a hitch mounted snow plow called a snow sport that can turn your sammy into an inexpensive driveway plow.

Bye bye.

Man were all argueing what zuk is better. The fact is there are zuks and thats what makes them great. I have had sammis and kicks. i even have a xl7 the main point is i love all of them. They are great off road machines no matter which one you own and they have a own little culture to them. I guess you have to own one to know.  But i have yet to see a zuk a i didn't want to take home with me.

The fact that I want to bring home more zuk's is causing an issue with the I don't want that many cars in the driveway argument.

The fact that I want to bring home more zuk's is causing an issue with the I don't want that many cars in the driveway argument.

backyard. FrontYard, SideYard.
Lots of yard space