And best of all: it`s also legal on the street! It`s up there with some of the coolest custom Baja builds. The car was bought a few years ago by a man who had done much of the manufacturing work. So you already had a good starting point. However, the engine and gearbox required significant work, as the previous owner lost interest in them. So they bought it, took it home to their garage, and did a complete dismantling, removing each panel to build it essentially from scratch. Over the next few years, the SCG team developed the new vehicle with three goals in mind. It had to look as tough as the original, be able to win his class in Baja, and serve as the basis for a legal version of the street. At the beginning of 2019, the racing version was ready and SCG participated in this year`s Baja 1000 in December. Instead of a pickup truck, Jim and his small team drove the race truck and a nearly identical predecessor from Armada Engineering`s shop in Chatsworth, California, to the start line in Ensenada, Mexico. In Jim`s world, closed car carriers are for the weak. Or overfunded factory teams. Meet the SCG boat: A true desert racer who is both road-legal and capable of winning the Baja 1000, inspired by the legendary (and legendarily strange) off-road machine that took Mexico`s legendary race by storm over half a century ago.
No mainstream automaker would even consider it possible to build a vehicle in such an outrageous way – forget your Raptors, TRX and any other truck that claims to be ready for Baja, though it needs a few pesky additions like a cage, suspension tuning and a puncture-proof fuel cell to compete in the race. On the other hand, the boat`s jersey is about to beat some Broncos as soon as it leaves the Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus store in upstate New York. It`s not a crawler, Autoweek explains, in the style of a Rubicon Jeep. Instead, it`s more like a Ford Raptor or Mojave Jeep, but reduced to the minimalist essentials. It`s really the closest thing to a legal side-by-side UTV on the street. 1970 VW Baja Bug, legal street with current AC license plate / registration. This car is no joke, aka ODB – Old Dirty Bastard. Heavily built and very reliable. Offer at a reasonable price and possibly ready to trade in for another toy of equal value $$ or `64 Cadillac, etc.
Show me what you have. Side-by-side UTVs can be a lot of fun, but they`re not exactly street legal. And while there are plenty of off-road trucks and SUVs on the market, they don`t have quite the same raw appeal. The modified Safari 911s and Micatas, as well as a handful of supercars, come a little closer. But when it comes to tackling both the urban and real jungle, few vehicles can compete with the Ariel Nomad. Try searching Craigslist with just the words race car, and you`ll end up finding some pretty cool stuff, at least here at SoCal anyway. And when I did this research yesterday, I found this legal Class 5 Baja Bug. If you`re not familiar with Class 5, it`s basically the unlimited Baja Bug class in SCORE and you`ll find that they tear it up at races like the Baja 500 and Baja 1000. While Class 11 is bugs, which have very strictly limited rules that allow virtually no modification, Class 5 allows almost anything, as long as it still has a VW engine and VW-style suspension. They`re incredibly cool machines with a real bike lane and real performance and they look like a complete race riot. We would like to own one, but they can be very expensive.
Remember, we saw them for over $100,000, about $50,000 and this one for $16,500 for sale. We`re sure there are things that aren`t quite high-end, most of the new stuff, but we`re pretty sure this one is still going to drag around and be a riot. However, the Nomad is less of a pure Raptor rival, but more of a competitor to the SCG boat or Sherp. Although the boat is a true off-road racer, it costs 2 to 3 times more. And while the latter can navigate on water, it`s significantly slower, unapproved for the road and about $10,000 more expensive than the Nomad. During testing on the Monticello Motor Club`s new off-road rally track and on various trails, the boat is in its element. Tromp on the accelerator and the LT4 is suspended from the rear and responds with noises and anger that belie his road condition. At MMC, there is a long straight line of dirt with a jump of two feet in the middle.
I take it relatively easy at first, get used to the unusual driving characteristics of so many tires and chassis. As I increase my speed with each lap, the ride becomes smoother to the point where at 70mph, the jump practically disappears. With two-wheel drive, cornering is manageable and fun with just enough oversteer to get the rear out of tight corners. Only two of these original boots were built. Steve McQueen bought both and drove one in the Baja 1000, but a transmission error caused a failure of less than 300 miles. In 1969, the same vehicle won the first Baja 500. Jim Glickenhaus purchased Baja`s winning boat at an auction at Pebble Beach in 2010 to expand his collection of major competition vehicles.