Meet Lester and a Little Back-Story
 

Long story short, my step-sister went off to college in NY and we still could use an extra car (not to mention it's not good for cars to sit), so "my" car is going to be driven by my GF and I am going to drive my S-S truck. So without further ado, here it is, meet Lester:

http://i1289.photobucket.com/albums/...psd1d5f81e.jpg

http://i1289.photobucket.com/albums/...ps99aab989.jpg

It definitely needs some work. Somebody hit her while they were pulling out of there driveway, so the front passenger bumper is a little messed up. The rear window doesn't roll down and my mom broke the antenna last Friday. (Luckily the truck belongs to her boyfriend, it's on her :lol:) I plan on cleaning it up a little bit, at the very least as a token of my appreciation for letting me use it.

According to fe.gov, this truck gets 16 combined mpg (yeah, that's half the Corolla :rolleyes:), but I've always wanted an SUV (more specifically the Escape Hybrid... for FE), so this is a good start.

I would love to do some things to "fix" the FE, but I can only do so much, since this isn't technically my vehicle. Some design plans are some sort of skid plate/belly pan combo that way I can claim it's for off-roading, but really the reason is FE based. Since the antenna is broken, I'm considering relocating it to a less drag-intense area (inside maybe?). Probably a grill block, but that is getting a little more "obvious" for the vehicle that's not mine. If I do it, I would certainly make it removable.

The piece de resistance would be an idea I had for when I get my Escape. At least in this case, I can use this truck as a "guinea pig" of sorts. Since there are roof cross bars on top, what I am planning is putting a kammback on the back and connecting it with some clamps to the cross bar (or a roof rack). There is some sort of spoiler type thing on the back (you can sort of see it in the pic) which is just screwed into place. I might use that to mount the kammback from the "bottom" side. Of course, I would need to put something like a wind fairing on the front crossbar, so that the air will pass over the kammback, not under.

I always imagined using the back window lock as the main mounting point, so it can be locked on and attached, just the back window up and as part of the boattail/kammback (but my imagination regards estates and hatches, mostly).

I look forward to following.