If the third time is a charm, then I must be pretty damn charming because the deities above are having me write ANOTHER Shitbox Showdown for you. This time, it truly is my pleasure, because we’ve got some goooooood stuff in store for y’all today. As usual though, we need to start by talking about the voting from yesterday, so let’s get into it!

As a reminder, we had a 1991 Isuzu Trooper and a 1987 Nissan Pathfinder. If you recall, I was particularly fond of the Trooper, its beautiful paint job and overall well-maintained quality (at least on the surface), and while the Pathfinder was still a good find in its own right, it had a couple of flaws that might make you pump the brakes.

Sure, the Pathfinder’s seller acknowledged the flaws outright, and they have maintained it decently, but flaws are flaws! Let’s see how y’all voted.

Stunning. I was disappointed in y’all the other day for picking the CR-V over the Element and thought about immediately putting in my two weeks notice, but us largely coalesce around the Trooper makes me think y’all might be alright. I like you. Can we be friends? Maybe? It’s fine if not, my therapist told me I shouldn’t fear rejection and should put myself out there regardless.

Anyways, today’s options. Here’s where I, the only C6 Corvette driver under the age of 30 (or 40 or 50), would put in a Corvette joke but Corvettes are no joking matter considering they’re the superior American motoring machine; you’ll never catch me joking about them. Instead, let’s talk about something else that’s equally not a joking matter: The Samurai.

1987 Suzuki Samurai JX – $3,999

Engine/drivetrain: 1.3 8-valve SOHC I-4 engine, 5-speed manual, 4wd

Location: Apple Valley, CA

Odometer reading: 99,260

Operational status: “Good condition […] runs great”

This thing is serious as a heart attack. This is 2,100 pounds of Japanese greatness, ready to flip its way into your heart. Why do I say it’s gonna flip? Because that’s just what these things do. With its short wheelbase and high center of gravity, these bad boys should be nicknamed Simon Biles the way they flip and do acrobatics and floor routines and other things. Get it? Neither do I. Let’s keep admiring it.

If you recall from yesterday’s showdown of the shitboxes, one thing I mentioned was that I love a good funky trunk, and this one is funked up in all the right ways for me. I dig a safari cloth top whose window you can fold up to leave the rear exposed, and mating that with the swinging trunk door… I dig it. And on the general note of a soft top on your off-roader: do it! My Jeep TJ has one and I absolutely love it, you just gotta make sure you don’t let it dry rot or get stabbed open by a thief and you’re good! Moving on.

Oh boy is that interior unremarkable! But I don’t need this to be remarkable, I just need it to work, and I’ll do the rest. Years ago, I test drove a new Bronco, and while it was clearly a nice machine, having the big ass tablet in the center with CarPlay and optional tire cameras to inform you of tire placement on the trail really turned me off. On one hand, it’s the classic case of another expensive thing to repair when it fails, and on the other hand, I was gonna buy this thing to off-road and destroy. All those creature comforts would make me hesitate to take it on trail for fears of damaging it.

Not this though. This Samurai I would destroy in a heartbeat. Or at least I’d try.

I mean, just look at this trunk. It’s seen so much abuse as is, you think I’m gonna start caring for it now?! Of course not. This is a thing I take to the bullshit store and do bullshit with; that I hook a 20 mph right turn in and regret all my life decisions as I’m suddenly inverted and looking at the sky and ground and sky and ground again as the almighty Samurai flips its way into the scrapyard. I dig it.

It’s looking like there’s some lovely hand crank windows and likely manual door locks, both keeping with the low cost and comfortability in trashing this thing. I love it! In terms of other notes from the owner: “soft top, newer battery. Start up immediately.” Rad! [Ed Note: This Samurai is too nice to destroy, but it does look like it’d be loads of fun to bash around the trails. -DT]. 

Boring stats! It has  63 hp and about 73 lb-ft torque, and it looks like it all gets you in the neighborhood of 25 mpg. Solid work! But now, we must talk about an American legend: the indomitable, the gorgeous, the furious, bucking Ford Bronco. Two.

1987 Ford Bronco II – $4,500

Engine/drivetrain: 2.9 Liter V-6 pushrod OHV, 5-speed manual, 4wd

Location: Los Angeles, CA

Odometer reading: 57,750 (kinda suspicious of that number)

Operational status: “RUNS AND DRIVES GREAT !!”

Alright so it’s not actually a Bronco, it’s a Bronco II, but what are you gonna do, sue me? Actually, please don’t. I’m poor and am much better at fighting than I am at sticking up for myself in front of the court, so let’s just go to the local park at three and handle this like a bunch of rapscallions. Deal? Cool. [Ed Note: No violence here. Just car-geekery. -DT]. 

I titled this one “The Battle of the Rollovers,” so I should inform you that the Bronco II is also prone to flipping more than Simone Biles (shit, I already made that joke; I need to watch more gymnastics).  Anyway, its issues were largely the same as the Samurai’s, but let’s see what Motor Trend has to say about it:

“Long before the Ford Bronco II went on sale, the manufacturer was aware of potential rollover issues. Engineers had calculated the Bronco II’s stability index, a calculation based on the center of gravity and track width, and found it was significantly lower than the competing Chevy S-10 Blazer, and slightly lower than the Jeep CJ-7. Sure enough, Ford Bronco IIs had already started to go shiny-side-down in testing. So great was the concern that Ford eliminated certain maneuvers from the testing program in the name of its drivers’ safety.”

Wait, the thing flipped so much Ford straight up banned certain tests to make it look normal on paper? Crazy. Anyways, more photos.

Yeeeesh. This seller is certainly no Henri Cartier-Bresson or Griffin Riley with a camera, huh? Well let’s talk about what we’re seeing.

I’m a sucker for that nice old brown carpet around the (manual!) transmission tunnel, mainly because it looks like the carpets I’d sleep on at home as a baby because my parents didn’t care enough to set me in the crib like any other self respecting parent would. The driver and passenger seats look like they’d be comfy in all the right ways, and, while it looks like rear leg room is trash, it still has some solid backseats ready to host your friends when they wanna go on a rollover, I mean drive.

We’re looking at some hand cranked windows again and manual locks and I’d like to say the little 8-ball they have on the lock is adorable. I also feel like I’ve never consciously noticed a car with the door’s interior painted the same as the exterior [Ed Note: Some old cars left some un-covered steel in the door panels – my Jeep J10 for example. -DT]. I’m used to seeing generic plastic cover the doors, so the touches of yellow in the interior make me smile. Maybe it’s because it reminds me of my late sister (not dead, she’s just not punctual) whose favorite color is yellow, or more realistically I just think it’s rad and my sister has no weight in the matter.

No spare tire! And a bit of chipped paint on the edge of the roofline. It sucks not having a spare because now you’re either stuck with buying a new one or perpetually hoping you never have a blowout on your primary four, but the paint I’m fine with.

In terms of what the seller is telling us, they’re saying it’s got power steering, brakes, and AC (but also said “(need a charge)”) so note that as you will. It’s got a clean title, too, so we don’t have to worry as much as we did with the Pathfinder from yesterday! I dunno, it sounds like this thing might be alright in the end.

Stats time! Its power plant gets you 140 hp and 170 lb-ft torque. I’m struggling to find info about its fuel efficiency, so let’s just imagine numbers instead! Six, 13, 527! That was fun. Oh and it has a curb weight of 3,385 lbs.

[Ed Note: Here you go:

Could be worse. -DT]

So there you have it: two cars that roll more than uh….(don’t say Simon Biles, don’t say Simon Biles) a blunt in California? Nailed it.

Personally, I dig the Blue Oval a bit more, but purely out of nostalgia. I learned to stick on a Bronco II my dad mostly restored on his own and that he forced me to sell because, get this, he didn’t want me to “roll over” in it. Crazy talk.

Whether you fancy the tiny off-roader out of Japan that will take you on a tumble down the mountain, or its unloved American counterpart that will treat you all the same, you’ve got options here. What do you think? A Samurai or a Bronco?