Why gas guzzlers make sense (again)

As I write this, the price of regular unleaded is hovering around $5 a gallon. Diesel is about a buck a gallon more. All of this is headline news on a daily basis. Fuel prices are affecting every industry, every business, and every consumer.

Yet as of late, buyers seem to be fighting over some immense, heavy-duty, sub–15-mpg gas-guzzling SUVs. Some are even selling for many multiples of what they did a few years ago, when fuel cost a fraction of what it does now. But the people buying these things (including yours truly) might be on to something.

Here I’ve focused on two gas-guzzlers with ever-increasing cult followings: The 2000–05 Ford Excursion and the 1998–2007 Toyota Land Cruiser.

The longest, heaviest mass-produced SUV ever, the Excursion was essentially an F-250 Super Duty wagon. With the optional V-10 gas or Power Stroke diesel engines, they tow up to 11,000 pounds. Never mind how many people, pets, and suitcases you can stuff inside an Excursion at the same time.

J100-series Land Cruisers, however, are not 3/4-ton pickup-based towing machines. Nor do they offer a variety of drivetrain choices. But they do have Toyota’s silky-smooth 4.7-liter V-8 and full-time 4WD. And they were built to last forever. Literally.

The average combined fuel economy for these trucks is about 14 mpg. But their collective inefficiency hasn’t seemed to slow down values. In the past 36 months, Excursion prices are up an average of 46 percent, while J100s are up 85 percent. More telling is the fact that both of these had heavy Gen X demand until the past 24 months, when millennial (and younger) interest came on strong.

Here’s why I think this is happening. First, they just don’t make stuff like this anymore. There were no hybrid powertrains, no kowtowing to CAFE standards, no considerations beyond just being rugged and unapologetic in their mission. Both are old enough to be “cool,” but not so old that they aren’t usable in today’s world.

Then there’s the COVID factor. These are vehicles that allow people to load up the whole family, tow the Airstream, and head out to places that help you forget about reality for a weekend or four. That’s especially attractive to millennial buyers looking to introduce their young kids to something beyond screen time. The work-from-home phenomenon also plays into this, because you can work from that camping spot.

Additionally, there’s a certain satisfaction to the analog feel of these machines—an unplugged vibe with no LCDs and no lane-keep assist or other electronic nannies constantly dinging at you.

As for that awful fuel mileage, let’s pencil that out. A new $52,000 Chevy Tahoe gets 16 mpg combined. A new $39,000 Grand Cherokee is rated at 23 mpg. Driving 10,000 miles in a year, the difference between a 14-mpg rig and a 23-mpg rig equates to about 279 gallons. At $5 a gallon, that’s an extra $1395 a year. Factor in the significant savings in the purchase price, and the additional fuel cost doesn’t seem insane.

Which is why I recently decided to replace our 2020 Ford Expedition with a “vintage” Excursion. The Expedition is a fine vehicle, but a boat or car trailer of any significance drops its comfy independent rear suspension to its knees, and towing in crosswinds was, um, more exciting than I expected. So I went on an Excursion excursion and landed on a clean, 50,000-mile 2000 Limited with the V-10. I paid $27,000 for it. Since then, I’ve done some needed maintenance and installed new tires. I’m currently in the truck for about $35K. We’ve put 2000 miles on it so far, primarily pulling a trailer to my son’s go-kart races every week, which it does as admirably as hoped. Thanks to the towing, I haven’t broken into double-digit fuel mileage yet, but the tank is big, so the refueling intervals don’t rub my nose in their thirst.

I have to say, I’m pleased with the decision to step back 22 years of refinement and technology for a rig that better fits my needs. Who says whistling past the graveyard isn’t rewarding?

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This article first appeared in Hagerty Drivers Club magazine. Click here to subscribe and join the club.