I'm shopping for my 1rst 4x4. Around my area, there is only 1 samurai available and I haven't looked at it, yet, but the one picture looks stock. Not sure about the condition. However, there are several Sidekicks available, 3 of them being 4door (which I think will be better for me).
With that said, buying a stock vehicle, I'm budgeting about $2000 CAD (about $1500 USD) for tires and lift to get it built up to a respectable capability. However, looking at the price of gears (almost $900 USD for 5:89's from Calmini) for the Sidekicks, I'm starting to worry about if modding a Sidekick up to par is going to be significantly more expensive that getting a Samurai up to the same level.
I was hoping to get some 31's or 32's on the vehicle initially - rather than having to get rid of smaller tires and lift down the road - and that that size would be good for quite a while.