If money was no object, these are the dream 4x4s we’d buy

We’ve all been there: lazing on the beach in a camp chair, staring out over the waves. Your eyes drift over to your rig and you start daydreaming about what you’d do to it if you woke up and were magically married to Jeff Bezos… no, the Bezos thing is just me? Look, you guys don’t want to know what I’d do for that sort of money, so let’s move on. 

Where were we? Oh yeah, fantasising about the things we could do with our 4X4s if money were no object. It’s quite the rabbit hole. Would you start over with something shiny, smelling like ‘eau de new car’? Something that’d not only allow you to keep up with the Jones’s but stay well ahead of them for the next decade or so. Or would you get yourself a second-hand weapon? A rig that’d re-define the word ‘modification’ and just go HAM on the custom touches. Maybe you’d get one of those vehicles that are so far from the norm, a real off-road oddity, just to be different from the poors with their lifted Patrols and Rangers. 

According to our therapists it’s really quite alarming how much thought we’ve put into this over the years and the arguments that have nearly come to blows on this very subject. And for the record, much like fine wine, mouldy bread and Nicolas Cage’s career, our tastes are always evolving and the list changes up on the reg. 

But for now, these are the top picks we’d choose if our bank account had a number with more zeroes behind it than Elon Musk, which is the French term for “smells like success”… I think.

Best new 4×4 wagon

Oh, you can afford a stock Lamborghini Urus? How boring. Now if you can also afford to throw a bunch of adventure mods and some arctic-truck-inspired wheels and rubber at it, now you’re talking like a proper rich person. 

Yeah ok, this one is just a concept rendering, and if you have to ask you definitely can’t afford it. But if you saw us rock up to the club wheeling trip in this, admit it, you’d think “geez, what a wanker, would be sure nice to have his money though.”

Best used 4×4 wagon

Everyone knows that used Range Rovers can be picked up for pennies on the dollar and being a professional tightarse is how the rich stay rich. So, instead of buying a new Rangie like some peasant on a tiddly few hundo grand a year, we’d pick up an out of warranty model for a song, then go ahead and spend the best part of a million turning it into a pre-runner. 

Why? Because normal Range Rover owners wish they were as rich as we are; and doing the school-run then jumping sets of stairs at the local industrial compound is where it’s at. Prove us wrong. 

Best custom 4×4

This madness belongs to team Crocker Kinabalu from Sabah in Malaysia and the video below is just 36min of a built-for-purpose hardcore rig handing out spankings to basically every obstacle in its path. Also known as awesomeness.

Details are thin on the ground, but we can see Volvo portals, a turbocharged four-banger (3SGTE?), a god-winch (essentially an off-tap PTO winch) and all the custom touches you’d expect from a rig of this calibre. 

Given that extreme mods are only illegal for poor people in Australia, as gozillionaires we’d love to take this weapon out to coffee in Toorak, or you know, up to the Cape or something cool rich folks like us like to do. 

Dream new 4×4 ute

Is this vehicle visually appealing? No. Do we particularly like EVs? Also no. Is it even available yet? Nope.

But that’s why it’s on our list. Because we’re rich enough to rock up at Tesla Headquarters, show them our bank statement and drive away in an unreleased Cybertruck. You probably wouldn’t understand. 

Still, despite these things currently being a pie-in-the-sky option, they’re nothing if not promising, with over 6T towing capacity, 800km range and 0-100 in ~3 seconds, you can see why we’re willing to get our wallets out and wave them around. Not that we’re compensating for anything. Why, what have you heard?! 

Best used 4×4 ute

You didn’t really expect us to be loaded and not own a Mog did you? Probably the most versatile 4X4 in existence, we’d deliver it directly to Unidan Engineering and have Dan and his team go nanas with a blank cheque.

We’re talking tyres, barwork, winch, seats, AC, gearing, OBA and about a hundred other little custom touches that’d make the mighty Merc even mightier, and a whole lot nicer to live with. 

Crazy custom ute – Gary Waggoner’s 40-80

You may be aware of the trend of putting older 40 Series Land Cruiser bodies on the newer 80 Series frames. There are several Aussie companies, like ReFab Engineering, McKinnons Cruisers and LCS 4×4, who make these conversions more achievable than ever. But way back in the early naughties, an American bloke named Gary Waggoner kicked things off and converted his 40 into this beaut custom rig featuring a 2UZ-FE 4.7L V8, custom interior and 40in rubber; kickstarting a bit of a movement in the process. You love to see it, and everyone knows that money is only useful for the cool toys it can buy you.  

Straight out of left field – Ripsaw F4

“No officer, it’s totally stock. Here, have $10,000 and go away. Thanks.” 

At least, that’s how we imagine the convo would go when we got pulled over in our Howe and Howe Technologies Ripsaw F4. And the thing is, we wouldn’t be lying. Even stock these things are amazing. How’s an 800hp turbo-diesel sound? How about King suspension all around, or a full luxury interior? Billed as the fastest tank in the world, and purportedly capable of conquering any off-road terrain with its 20in of ground clearance. And all for the quite reasonable starting price of half a milly (USD). We all know that cleaning the red dirt out of vehicle after a Simmo crossing is a chore so we’d probably just buy two. 

Hummer H1 Alpha

The last of the Hummer H1s and easily the best, in our wealthy opinion, is the H1 Alpha. Not only did this model sport the 6.6L Duramax engine (a huge improvement on the 6.5L V8 Chev diesel it replaced), but it also had a stronger chassis, better portal gears and an all-round better driving experience. 

If you’re looking for the most rich-guy, obnoxious vehicle that’s vaguely legal for Aussie roads (which we are, of course) then the H1 Alpha is your brand of whimsy. 

Custom – Soni Honegger’s Scorpion

We’ve all seen and heard of rockcrawling buggies, right? But anyone with five figures of disposable income can buy one of them. Yawn. 

No, for our overweight pocketbook we’d want something special, and that’d be the original rock buggy, Soni Honegger’s Scorpion. 

First seen in the late nineties, this is the rig that arguably kicked off the whole buggy craze. Resembling a Hummer, the Scorpion had some of the craziest airbag suspension ever seen to this day and more capability than any chequebook 79 build could ever hope for. 

Just like that scene in Gone In 60 Seconds: if you owned this, you would cease to be a self-indulgent weiner, you would be a connoisseur. 

What do you think?

Got strong opinions on our choices or have recently come into some money yourself and want to share your thoughts? Live, laugh, Let us know in the comments.