The Tangerine Tornado

My wife and I were laying on the living room floor totally exhausted from our teaching schedule and other activities. It was the weekend before Thanksgiving, 1971. We had plans to stay home and do nothing.

The phone rang while we were laying our plans to do nothing. It was our relative who had a major mechanic shop in St. Paul MN. “I’ve found the suburban you asked me to look for. It is a GMC 4×4 and they will sell it to me for $50 over cost. It is 3/4 ton, heavy duty automatic tranny, and is orange and white!” We immediately forgot the fatigue, but Orange?? There were two oranges; pumpkin orange and red-orange. If it was pumpkin orange the deal was off so, in the middle of the night, we roared down to the dealership and looked at the color swatches. We could go red-orange so called to verify. It was red- orange and white top. Deal on.

We flew to St. Paul, picked up our first and only new vehicle, drove 1000 miles home in a vicious snow storm.

We still have the “Tangerine Tornado”. It was the first of the 1972’s. We have brought our babies home in it, slept in it during hunting season, brought home 5 moose, around 80 elk, 50 or so antelope, lots of deer, pheasants, ducks, fended off people wanting to buy it, just enjoying it.

We were elk hunting in snow about axle deep. Had to put tire chains on all four wheels then drove about five miles to the end of the road. As we got out of the suburban to prepare to hunt, two guys on snow machines pulled up to us. I casually asked them what they were doing. They said they had picked up our tracks about 5 miles back. The conditions were so bad they followed our tracks to see what we were driving!

A few years later I had the kids and my wife with me in the same area, same bad snow conditions, chains on all 4 tires. We were going to go up this wicked two track trail. At the bottom was a a jeep universal with wide tires. They had torn up the bottom of the trail trying to get up it. They asked what I was planning to do. They said I had no chance to get up the trail since they couldn’t. I told them I would at least give it a try. ( I knew it was no problem ). Gave the spurs to the sub, took off ,never even spun, left them standing there by their jeep.

The color has been the real deal. The ranchers always remember us. They never forget red orange and white.

The one major upgrade I felt was necessary was to add a 45 gallon fuel tank. Dropped out the stock 20 gallon, the big tank fit right in. Absolutely needed where gas stations are few and far between. Haven’t seen a similar tank in today’s catalogs.

Our son and my wife will not allow me to ever sell it. It has too many stories, goes anywhere, very reliable. Whenever we are headed back to the sub after a long hunt, that wonderful color is easy to spot from a long distance then you know you’ve got it made.