The Athfinder didn’t emerge from careful market research. It began in the summer of 1996 with three rugged, amazing, regionally-notorious high schoolers, one restored pickup, and a bag of jo-jos warming on the dash. Everything since has been the long, expensive, occasionally magnificent process of building the machine those kids deserved and could not, at any point in their lives, remotely have afforded. Base MSRP: $69,000. They’d have wanted it that way.
Three friends begin driving the back roads every weekend in search of the ath. Jo-jos from the Texaco. Rodeo by Garth Brooks loud enough to bow the windows. Encounters along the way include older girls at the lake with an inexhaustible supply of lotion and a strict policy of reciprocity, the mythical wolf-girl of Highway 12 (three sightings, zero matching descriptions), Mr. Peaches (bait dealer, local oracle, accurate to a degree the federal government found upsetting), and a shirtless man at the truck-stop counter with “sweat and sour” smeared across his chest in what was agreed, unanimously and without discussion, to be condiment. They don’t find the ath. They come close enough to know it exists. Mr. Peaches confirms this with a nod that lasts slightly too long.
One goes east. One stays and gets very good with his hands. The third we are not discussing, per the agreement. The truck is sold to a cousin who never deserved it; the family has not fully healed. The search is paused. It is not abandoned. There is a difference, and it is legally significant.
Photographs exchanged intermittently. A cliff face in Wyoming. A switchback in the Dolomites. A dirt road outside Moab. Captions always read the same: “Close.” Careers are built. Kids are had. All three men grow more sexy with age, which is both inconvenient and medically unusual. Doctors are consulted. The doctors are stumped. One doctor asks to come along.
Chance meeting at a gas station in northern Nevada. Ninety minutes of standing talk under fluorescent lights. Decision made: stop searching, build the vehicle the ath deserves. First sketch appears that night on a cocktail napkin. Crude, oversized, financially irresponsible, exactly right. The napkin survives. It is framed at headquarters and insured for more than the building.
Prototype exceeds projections in every direction, including several the engineers had not previously considered directions. Ground clearance hits 14 inches — more, frankly, than anyone asked for. Suspension goes deeper than any engineer thought possible, then holds there, comfortably, for as long as required. Endurance testing concludes after a particularly demanding stretch of unpaved road in Montana makes two test drivers weep. Both ask to go again.
The Athfinder wins “Vehicle Most Likely to Be Compensating for Something” at the International Automotive Awards. We accept proudly. We are compensating for nothing. It’s all real. Independent measurement is available upon request. The trophy is enormous. We did not ask why.
What began as a private search between three teenage boys in ’96 is now available to anyone brave enough to go looking. The doors are open. The keys are on the seat. Your ath is out there. It is not going to find itself. That has been tried, and the results embarrassed everyone involved.