A Daily Driven, Off-Road Capable 4Runner

TEXT BY JERRY TSAI IMAGES BY SCOTT CHU

When deciding on which platform to base an off-road capable build on, one must take into account their wants, as well as their needs. The practical side sometimes can put a damper on the fun side of the equation, but as we see with the 4Runner featured in this article, a careful balance between the two can be reached.

The folks over at Black Rhino Wheels set out to create a daily driven vehicle that is fully capable of taking on trails at a moment’s notice. After looking at a few different vehicles, they decided to go with a Toyota 4Runner. With its legendary reliability, good looks, off-road capability and enclosed cabin, the 4Runner checks all the boxes on the practicality check list and then some.

We spoke to TSW’s Ryan Gallagher about the building process. He informed us that the ‘18 4Runner SR5 was brand new and came off Huntington Beach Toyota’s lot with only 6 miles on its odometer. He continued, “The build process was a lot of fun. We brought this vehicle from an everyday 4Runner to a vehicle that could crawl over almost anything or go through a whoop section at a fast pace. This thing does everything we would ever imagine it to.”

To address the want column of the list, it was decided that the 4Runner would be left in the very capable hands of Doug Parks at Evil Manufacturing. Located in La Habra, California, Evil Manufacturing is a full-scale automotive manufacturing and fabrication shop that can create just about anything you can think of. In this case, Gallagher and his cohorts simply wanted a daily drivable vehicle they can take wherever they need it to go, even over questionable terrain.