My 1979 Jeep Cherokee Golden Eagle has always been my coolest-looking vehicle, but also objectively my worst. The gorgeous SUV has a mediocre AMC 360 V8 engine that will almost certainly never pass smog, a fuel-sucking three-speed slushbox, a fuel-sucking full-time four-wheel drive system, the most rust-prone body in automotive history, and parts availability similar to that of a concept car. It has been a nightmare since day one, but also in some ways a dream. A dream that someday I’ll be cruising along in the most badass-looking SUV of all time. A dream that will now never be realized, as I have just cashed an $8000 check for my beleaguered bird. It’s time to go, Golden Eagle.
I don’t like to fail in anything. It’s why, when I set out to do seemingly impossible wrenching expeditions, I don’t let anything stop me. $500 Postal Jeep with a rotted-out frame and a cracked cylinder head? No worries, I’ll weld that up and swap the valves. 1948 Willys Jeep with a bad motor and transmission? I’ll figure that out. 1958 Willys FC-170 that probably hasn’t run in decades and that looks completely hopeless? I’ll pull that miracle right out of my hat. $600 Diesel Manual Chrysler Voyager Minivan? I’ll get that engine running, swap out the CV joints and brakes and steering parts and hoses, limp that through Germany’s rigorous TUV inspection, then drive it to Istanbul. Almost-literally-impossible Chrysler Valiant Ute in Australia? I can handle that. The list goes on and on. I don’t like to fail; I’m extremely stubborn.
Why, then, make an exception with the Golden Eagle? Well, I think the answer is simple: Back when I was doing all that heavy wrenching, I was a writer, or, in the case of Project Cactus (the Australian Valiant), I was in the early days of building hype for a fledgling automotive website. I had time to wrench, and my god did I. For 10 straight years, I wrenched almost every single day. Junkyard visits occurred at least weekly, my yard was packed full of projects, and I was just getting it done.
And I can still get it done! I just dropped the fuel tank on my Jeep Wrangler YJ and swapped out the fuel pump. I also yanked an axle out of a junkyard Jeep Grand Cherokee back in November. I’ve done some wrenching on my manual transmission ZJ, removing its cylinder head and cooling system, and I’ve done brakes on a Lexus RX and a differential fluid change on my BMW i3.
But that ZJ is going to take a while to finish, and it’s not a vehicle I’m willing to part ways with, because a stickshift ZJ is just a fantastic, easily-maintainable, off-road capable machine. I’ve also got to change the engine mounts on my YJ Wrangler, I’ve got to fix the Nash, I’ve got to replace my 1966 Ford Mustang’s entire suspension, I want to install PPF on my new i3, I want to do some bodywork to my Jeep J10 pickup, and I could go on. The point is, my life is different than it was back in 2017 when I bought the Golden Eagle. I run a media company now, and also, my personal life here in LA is a bit more complex than it was in Michigan.
Is the Golden Eagle a fail? I think, if I were in Michigan and still a single staff writer struggling to get this thing on the road, sure. Seriously, what the heck, David? It’s a crappy V8, but it’s not that hard to get running. But in reality, I see it more of a casualty of having co-built the large and growing automotive institution known as The Autopian. You have to make tough choices in life: Do you spend 100 hours getting a Golden Eagle running when you already have the truck version with a better engine and transmission, or do you hire writers and pay invoices and meet with freelancers and write articles and film videos with Beau and spend time with someone you want to build a future with?
I’m stubborn, so I hate having to make these types of choices. “I can just do it all!” And on some level, I can. But there are 24 hours in a day, and choosing where to place those hours is the difference between success and failure. And in terms of successes, I’d rather stack those on the side of this company and my relationship, even if it means I have to assign a failure to a gorgeous brown AMC product.
So here I am, with eight grand in my pocket, and one Golden Eagle about to get on a flatbed. I understand why this had to happen, but I still feel sad. [Ed note: click here for musical accompaniment.]
The Jeep, whose motor is currently locked up, is going to a gentleman named Aaron out of Texas; he tells me he has a collection of wide-track Cherokees and plans to restore this thing and drive it. He seems to be a full-size Jeep addict, which is about the only person who would buy this vehicle given its maladies.
Best of luck, Aaron. Send me some pics as you resurrect this sickly bird.
I feel you, brother. OK, I don’t have the media company thing and my job is pretty low-stress and very 9-5, but I’ve got is cars and more projects than time, other things I enjoy spending my time on (travel, biking, friends, cooking, etc) and a partner i love very much and love spending time with (and who is very accepting of my nuttiness about cars). Some things have to go. It’s not a failure – just a success you had to pass on to someone else to finish.
I feel you, brother. OK, I don’t have the media company thing and my job is pretty low-stress and very 9-5, but I’ve got is cars and more projects than time, other things I enjoy spending my time on (travel, biking, friends, cooking, etc) and a partner i love very much and love spending time with (and who is very accepting of my nuttiness about cars). Some things have to go. It’s not a failure – just a success you had to pass on to someone else to finish.
Sold to a guy down south to be rebuilt sounds like the automotive equivalent to when you get rid of a pet , ” they are down south living on a farm”????
Sold to a guy down south to be rebuilt sounds like the automotive equivalent to when you get rid of a pet , ” they are down south living on a farm”????
Maybe you can get Aaron from Texas to write a whole article about the restoration process and final result.
But that might be weird to ask.
Maybe you can get Aaron from Texas to write a whole article about the restoration process and final result.
But that might be weird to ask.
Was it a failure? In a sense, yes. HOWEVER, you just turned a profit on a vehicle you made worse. I could think of worse ways to fail.
They can’t all be winners my man!
Was it a failure? In a sense, yes. HOWEVER, you just turned a profit on a vehicle you made worse. I could think of worse ways to fail.
They can’t all be winners my man!
> I was just getting it done.
… Yes and no. Your wrenching output was prodigious, but your appetite for shitboxes was even greater, hence a citation from the city of Troy and a non running Golden Eagle and an ancient non running van filled with mouse droppings.
Congrats on selling off the Golden Eagle.
> I was just getting it done.
… Yes and no. Your wrenching output was prodigious, but your appetite for shitboxes was even greater, hence a citation from the city of Troy and a non running Golden Eagle and an ancient non running van filled with mouse droppings.
Congrats on selling off the Golden Eagle.
$8000 is $8000
And for a locked up motor?
Yeah- you made a good deal on a big brown bird
$8000 is $8000
And for a locked up motor?
Yeah- you made a good deal on a big brown bird
Congratulations. You will come back to this model (a long way) down the road. We addicts have a tendency to favour searches on cars we already had at some point in time, a mix of “devil you know” and “this time I know what to be on the lookout for”.
Here are mine,
Mercedes 300 SEL 6.3, W113 “Pagoda”, Audi 80 (4000) B2; VW Golf MkII, Porsche 931, Ferrari 412 (manual), Mercedes W111 (convertible), R129 600SL, Citroen DS.
I want almost all your cars
Congratulations. You will come back to this model (a long way) down the road. We addicts have a tendency to favour searches on cars we already had at some point in time, a mix of “devil you know” and “this time I know what to be on the lookout for”.
Here are mine,
Mercedes 300 SEL 6.3, W113 “Pagoda”, Audi 80 (4000) B2; VW Golf MkII, Porsche 931, Ferrari 412 (manual), Mercedes W111 (convertible), R129 600SL, Citroen DS.
I want almost all your cars
Wait, what, David actually SOLD A CAR !??!! The last time he did that he moved across the country on top of the other huge change of starting a business. What’s next?
Coming soon – BMW i3: Will it Baby?
Wait, what, David actually SOLD A CAR !??!! The last time he did that he moved across the country on top of the other huge change of starting a business. What’s next?
Coming soon – BMW i3: Will it Baby?
Aww, a bittersweet update. Still, it sounds like the Golden Eagle has gone to a good home. And I’m always happy to be reassured that there are other full-size Jeep enthusiasts out there.
Aww, a bittersweet update. Still, it sounds like the Golden Eagle has gone to a good home. And I’m always happy to be reassured that there are other full-size Jeep enthusiasts out there.
I think the stumbling block was you actually want this one to be a NICE, possibly restored vehicle, not just a runner. Let it go to a good home that will give it the attention it deserves. Focus on your manual ZJ trail machine, this site and that deserving, tolerant girl of yours.
I think the stumbling block was you actually want this one to be a NICE, possibly restored vehicle, not just a runner. Let it go to a good home that will give it the attention it deserves. Focus on your manual ZJ trail machine, this site and that deserving, tolerant girl of yours.
You should hire Aaron from Texas to photo/video/write up the restoration for all of us to enjoy!
After the trauma of working on an abandoned DT project Jeep, he might want to be paid more than $8k to write the article…
You should hire Aaron from Texas to photo/video/write up the restoration for all of us to enjoy!
After the trauma of working on an abandoned DT project Jeep, he might want to be paid more than $8k to write the article…
WELL DONE! You’ve found the best possible home for it, you should feel like someone who fostered a stray kitty and found a perfect family for it to live with.
WELL DONE! You’ve found the best possible home for it, you should feel like someone who fostered a stray kitty and found a perfect family for it to live with.
DT, my man, don’t give it another thought. You’ve got other things to do and other places to be. Don’t waste time on what will eventually be a trivial footnote 🙂 I’m gonna drop a quote here, maybe it helps you re-frame the “loss” of the Eagle, maybe it doesn’t. Maybe it helps another reader, maybe it doesn’t.
Either way, it’s worth considering for a moment at least once…:
“Death is always on the way, but the fact that you don’t know when it will arrive seems to take away from the finiteness of life. It’s that terrible precision that we hate so much. But because we don’t know, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens a certain number of times, and a very small number, really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that’s so deeply a part of your being that you can’t even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more. Perhaps not even. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless.”
― Paul Bowles, The Sheltering Sky
Damn that quote hits home.