I know what you are thinking. "Unsub you are a genius ,I can't believe we have not done one of these yet"! I know just how you feel. It seems so obvious that we have done bug out bags and vehicles and even jeeps but never a BOV thread.

Now some of you probably have first rate 4X4's as bug out vehicles. For a long time the perfect BOV was a large pre86 US 4X4 with big tires and enough lights for a night game of baseball. There are lots of good reasons for that and even if their were not their is something in my genes that makes me want one the same way I want big boobies and shiny things.

Unfortunatly not all of us can afford a nice 4X4 but that is not necessarily a bad thing. I was reading up on BOV's over at alpharubicon and their is an interesting article about using the vehicle you have. The author has a minivan to transport his family and uses it for a BOV. A minivan has a few advantages over the giant 4X4 especially mileage ,reliability and especially it is a lot more low key. A small minivan can be a real sleeper. One with a Barrett .50 is even better.


So what do you have to use and how have you made it better? What do you have planned and what do you consider must have equipment?


We just had a serious cold snap where it got below 35 for over 10 days straight with it getting a lot lower at times and it started off with a huge blizzard.
So I have decided to better outfit my truck for really harsh weather which thanks to global warming we will be getting a lot more of.

I have a 97 GMC Serria 2 wheel drive truck with the 5.0 litre V8. Obviously 4X4 would be nice but in a used truck of that vintage they are apt to need a lot of expensive repairs. The good 4X4's have locking hubs and 2 standard style gear shifts and a manual tranny. Unfortunately the average truck buyer is so fat and lazy he wants a auto tranny and shift on the fly. He does not want to stop much less get out of the truck<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/banghead.gif" alt="" /> . These rube goldberg devices suck ,they are not as good for driving off road and often break down.

That's why I went with a good 2 wheel drive with first rate winter tires.
The powerful motor and great clearance make a big difference but it really is proper snow tires that totally change how she drives. All seasons are a bad joke. They don't work worth a crap in either season. If you only get a bit of snow and mostly wet get a good set of wet/dry summer tires. If you live where you have actual snow don't cheap out get decent winter tires. It is false economy anyway. When tires spin they wear out super fast. The tires I got are
Coopers which are quite a bit cheaper than the name brands. They don't have kevlar or fancy radials etc but winter tires don't have that stuff anyway.

Some future work I plan to do is add a second battery. It was an option on some versions of my truck so all I need is a stock piece of wiring harness. This is real usefull in the very cold and with some extra lights which I will also add.
It is a pretty nice truck already with a underhood and cargo light.

I am also planning to make sure all the air intakes are located as high as possible so that I can go through waist deep water. We had a flood 2 years ago where I road through water that covered my butt in a flash flood and huge hail on the motorbike with a girl on the back. We made it but almost got swept into the river because these stupid old people totally safe in a car panicked and stopped in the middle of the road as soon as they were through the rushing floodwaters. We were blocked in the flash flood by the back of their car and were frantically honking and screaming and waving while they just sat there.
We had come to a complete stop and the water was getting faster and higher and just as we were about to tip over and get swept away they slowly moved their car
Thank god my honda did not stall up to the handlebars in moving water. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbup.gif" alt="" />because we managed to drive out. The old couple even gave us a dirty look for bothering them. Not only do they probably not know they almost killed us
they would have gotten away with it.