I need your expertise for a daily driver pothole slammer.

Collective smart people of GRM. First I want to put a scene in your mind. I'm on a washboarded whooped out desert trail, I can see for miles in front of me. There is nobody else except my riding partner a mile back. I am on a KTM dirtbike with the throttle held open in 5th gear, standing on the pegs, wind in my face. I briefly glance down at the dash and see 90. The front and back suspension are getting pounded so hard the wheels are a blur. But with no hestitation I reach down and click into 6th. This is my bliss moment.

So I have weird tastes in motorsports. I like horsepower. I like a balanced chassis. I like lightweight. But what I really love is suspension. Not the kidney pounding, only good for a track surface coilovers that are on my miata. What really gets me going is a big beefy offroad shock with a huge remote reservoir that says "I'm going to take everything you throw at me." 

I want a trophy truck for a daily driver. Our roads are terrible. I don't want to slow down, I don't want to swerve, I want to carry along on bad pavement or washboard gravel driving at the speeds I want. 

I've asked this question a few times before on different forums. Nobody seems to have the expertise to answer. Buy a full size truck or a jeep or a 80's buick is the most common response. But no, if you've actually driven these they are clearly not engineered to be driven in anger over rough surfaces. I don't like axle tramp and the size of a pickup. I rented a rubicon JK with 38" tires, and when I picked up speed offroad I thought I was about to die. I have briefly considered something like a WRX with rally suspension, but after doing some research it doesn't seem like this is the right way to do it either. 

I guess I've brainstormed it down to this, I need these things to achieve the ride I want:

-Large diameter tire/ big wheel wells, small brakes that fit a 15" rim.

-enough clearance and suspension travel with independent rear suspension

-sturdy chassis

-and most importantly I need the aftermarket support to be able to buy a dedicated offroad racing shock (NOT a rock crawling shock). 

What say you collective motor sports experts? Am I dreaming? Can I ever make a car like this

have about 30% of the capability as this by throwing money at it?

My Trail Team FJ Cruiser with 295/75/16 K02 does the job fantastically out here in the southwest. Bilsteins is what I run. Fox 2.0 with reservoirs is my next step up.

if I had the money, Raptor would be my hands down choice.. having been involved with canguro, high speed baja is our specialty. 

Raptor is the only stock vehicle I've ever driven that comes close to what you're looking for. 

Second best? My '80s Buick. Seriously. This thing cruises down forest roads at 50mph without breaking a sweat. Details here:

https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/build-projects-and-project-cars/the-personal-luxury-coupe-lifted-1985-buick-rivier/170863/page1/

How much money?

In reply to BlueInGreen - Jon (Forum Supporter) :

F N A you beat me to it. 

I would also consider a lifted RX7. I beat my 85 down many 2 track trails

Bronco may be the stock answer in the future.  

Modern full size trucks do indeed suck for size, maybe an older model?  My '93 F150 has as good of a turning radius as my wife's CX-5.  Possibly a '99-'04 Lightning with suspension mods?

I don't think simply lifting a car is the answer.  To get that kind of smoothness you need increased travel.

You can certainly get there by throwing money at it.  Lots of cutting and welding to fit long travel rally components in there that have like 12" of travel instead of 7".

Put this kit on an explorer?  https://camburg.com/shop/suspension/camburg-ford-ranger-edge-2wd-01-12-race-l-t-kit/

The WRX with a slightly lifted suspension would be nice. Our 2003 with 1 inch larger tires on stock suspension with a stiffer rear sway bar was our best bomb around bumpy city roads car I have ever had. Our version of bumpy down here is fairly tame though.

I would think you would want the tallest and lightest wheel/tire combo you can fit with a reasonable sidewall,  taller reasonably stiff springs but little to no sway bar so each wheel can handle its own business, longer travel shocks and helper springs so you can have some droop, and the gearing and power to not end up with a slow dog of a vehicle.

I think there is something to starting with a nice enough vehicle that the factory spent some time trying to prevent rattles and squeaks would help. A rattlebox drastically increases your perception of bumps and makes the whole experience painful. 

For travel my Disco was ridiculous. I jacked it up by the frame and I kept going up, and up, and up, but the wheels stayed on the ground.

You need travel and a shock that can make it work. Any popular IRS off road platform can get that with the right parts. 

Easy button. Raptor. Problem is the $$$ is up there. $25K to get in the door.

Cheaper button. F150 and about $7K of parts for a "Baja" long travel suspension and a couple weekend moving slow. 

These guys sell more of what you are looking for. 

https://www.bajakits.com/

I have thought about this as well and I have an answer.

03+ P71 Crown Victoria Police Interceptor as the base. Think about it, full actual frame, front IRS that lives in a removable subframe that features upper and lower control arms and a rack and pinion steering setup, and a solid rear axle with links that actually work and a watt's link, all factory. The actual P71's also have 1" more suspension travel to start, 17" steel wheels, and are designed to go over curbs at speed.

You can get skid plates for them and the traditional body on frame construction and suspension design should lend itself to installing aftermarket baja style racing components. 

Assuming you have enough travel and that's not the main thing sinking your attempt at this, I actually think you will see proportionally more results from lowering unsprung weight and tuning bumpstops than from spring and (hydraulic) damper changes. Not that you won't need those to be in the ballpark too, but if i got both things 'good enough' and was deciding which one to go overboard on, I'd pick unsprung weight (which bolts on once and works forever more) over getting the last n'th degree of damper tuning (which is difficult to implement, difficult to measure, and doesn't have the same effect on all types of terrain). The bumpstops i bring up because you can have a totally trick setup that still makes you cringe when you run out of it, so the bumpstops have a crucial role in the car not making you feel like what you're doing is a bad idea and mechanical sympathy becoming a voodoo doll that just transmits pain into your brain.

When i lived in the Texas hill country I found that out of everything i owned, my minivans were the best for driving fast in the way you're describing. I also had a stock Dodge Magnum that did pretty well. I'm not recommending a minivan, i'm just saying that the answer isn't necessarily in trick parts as much as basic ingredients. Travel first, bumpstops second, unsprung weight third, damping and spring rate tied together somewhere after that. IMO

As far as the wheel/tire combo, I think it would be better to give up width in favor of weight, and to a lesser extent to give up sidewall. Ultimately any car that does what you're referring to with the dirtbike is going to turn like E36 M3 just like a dirtbike, and in the same manner that stadium trucks can land a sweet jump because they have so little rear stiffness that they can only use one front tire to turn (because they roll so hard and so far in the rear that they lift the inside front). If you recognize that implicit compromise it will make it easier to get a wheel/tire combo that serves the actual goal because you won't be hung up on cornering performance that the car will NOT have anyway. Not unless you can lean it 30+* and sink your circular cross-section tires so far into the surface you're turning on that it basically becomes a tiny high banked track surface around them (like a dirt bike). 

Get any post-1995 Toyota 4x4 and call Icon. Done. 

Edit: missed the IRS part, my bad. Third-gen Montero then. Call King and Total Chaos. The best part will be spending more on the new suspension than the actual vehicle 

Pre runners and trophy trucks are all stick axles right? Why do you need IRS if you've got proper shocks and huge sidewalls?

The cheap/easy option is a 98+ Ranger and Camburg or Dixon Bros long travel kits. The older Ibeam trucks will get you more travel, but cost more to upgrade.

3-5k for a decent truck, 3-5k for the suspension, 1500 for tires, 500 for fiberglass fenders (bulge the stock bedsides on your own for cheap) and you'll have a long travel truck that still fits places for 10-15k. 

Tacomas are a good base too but I'm less familiar with their aftermarket.

http://exomotive.com/exocet/off-road/

or if you have a really big budget...

1) https://www.arielna.com/arielnomad

or 2) find a used one of these:

You don't need aftermarket support to put serious offroad shocks on a car- they're sold by length, valving, and usually some bypass options.  Really you just need to be able to figure out how much travel you can package, what valving you want, and go from there.  Ideally you want a car that can also fit a tall tire and small wheels, as noted.

The closest thing I've had as a daily driver to what you're describing was my Celica GTS- RWD, long bumpstops, and 195/75R14 BFG A/Ts made it all but unstoppable over PA's lousy choppy roads:

I have since had a couple of cars with Bilstein HDs and 16" tires with plenty of sidewall, although nothing quite hits the sweet spot like the Celica did.  If you pick a vehicle I'll poke around at the shock specs and see how viable this sort of thing looks, if you want.

As far as straight, bolt on aftermarket stuff, my choice would probably be a Tacoma X-Runner with some mid travel suspension stuff thrown at it.  But that's expensive.

I've been daydreaming about a light car that could hammer down back roads at silly speeds. A full forest spec rally car kind of thing, but on a GRM friendly budget. What about fitting the suspension of one of the larger side-by-side vehicles (Polaris or ???) to a small hatchback? Think jacked up Kia Rio5 on long travel suspension that is largely factory parts. I'll go back to dreaming up projects for the rest of you guys to take on now.

In reply to DeadSkunk (Warren) :

20% stiffer springs, a halfway decent shock, long progressive foam bumpstops, and a tire with some sidewall is all you really need.  I've applied this formula to a few cars and it works well- more fun than actual rally suspension at sane speeds too, the serious rally stuff doesn't tend to smooth out until you're moving faster than you really want to on a non-closed road.

https://classifieds.race-dezert.com/FOR-SALE:1999-Toyota-Tacoma-167599

$6500.  Try that. See what works what dosent. Go from there. 

Vracer111 said:

http://exomotive.com/exocet/off-road/

or if you have a really big budget...

1) https://www.arielna.com/arielnomad

or 2) find a used one of these:

i was looking for a Rally Fighter, looking like thet are trading around $75k

I take it putting turn signals and a license plate on a KTM Enduro isn't an option?

This mostly looks like it would call for low unsprung weight and a lot of suspension travel. I'm a bit surprised nobody has suggested a Baja Bug yet.

Looked at the Infiniti FX series shock specs since you posted a photo of one- unfortunately, that particular platform is probably a lousy choice.  I'm seeing a strut up front with 5.25" of travel and a shock out back with a hilarious 2.57" of travel (motion ratio probably doubles this, but still, yikes).

Like others have said....Raptor would be my choice.  If you can swing it, 2nd gen

I'd recommend looking at a Lexus GX 460, which is basically a Land Cruiser Prado with a hideous front end.   It continually surprises me with how well it does on the trails.  As a bonus, there is extensive aftermarket support for the GX 460 and 470.