This one also isn't going to be a build or a project. This is more of an ownership record.
I sold my XJ to my middle son a couple of months ago. It was a pretty good rig and I enjoyed building it. It had some shortcomings that were annoying me and I'm getting sick and tired of always working on my fun cars. It was time to move it on down the road.
Unfortunately, that left me without a vehicle that could be flat towed behind the motorhome. For the last couple of months I've been looking at what is available. The requirements were; capable of being flat towed, true 4wd, SUV or truck, under 6k pounds, something I wouldn't hate, and something I could daily.
So the wife and I discussed it. She didn't want a 4X4. Since she really likes the Touareg we decided that it would go to her and I would daily whatever we bought as a Toad.
I looked at Wranglers but was scared of their reliability ratings. I looked at Grand Cherokees as well. They were tempting but I really like driving something different. I looked at Tahoes, Colorados, Silverados, and their GMC cousins. I considered an F150 like the work truck I had just bought but didn't want to daily something that big. I looked at the Ranger but they are currently having engine issues.
One search pulled up the Hummer H3. Those looked pretty neat and different so I did some more digging. That brought me to the H3 Alpha and the H3 Adventure. Mmm, the V8 goodness was very tempting. The Adventure comes with all the off-road goodies. Locking diffs, 4:1 transfer case gears, 4:11 diff gears, 33" tires, and the skid plates to protect all of that. I had about settled on one of those when I came across the H3T. Man, that would be perfect. A trucklet about the size of the Ridgeline but a little more truck-like in every way.
So I started looking. Finding a 15-year-old 4WD truck that isn't beaten to death is a little tough and they were only built for 2 years. There were only 2448 Alphas built. Figure fewer than half of those have the Adventure group and they are thin on the ground and bring big money. Trucks with 150k-250k were asking $30k. Too much for my cheap self. There were only 5680 H3T built in total and I'm pretty sure 75% of them were sold out west.
After a good bit of searching, I found this one in Staunton VA. It's a 2009 H3T base with the Adventure group. It's in very good condition with only 90k on the clock. It's not the Alpha so it has the 3.7 Atlas I5 similar to my Colorados. It's not a drag truck, but the engine has enough power to get it down the road. Over all, I kind of like it.