One of my favorite things about old-school cars is single-stage paint. It's a shame the industry moved away from this (though I understand why) as there are few things more rewarding than scrubbing off some chalky, faded paint and seeing original luster come back to life in front of you.
As we near the end of the bodywork phase on the Trooper RS, my body man Nelson started to buff some small areas. He sent me these photos as they capture what the rest of the truck will eventually look like. It's absolutely incredible and probably one of the most rewarding moments of this journey; when I laid eyes on the Trooper in a salvage yard in Western Massachusetts, I was pretty confident the paint would come back to life. Now I have near infallible proof that it will.
Before I picked the truck up, I had never looked at the odometer. It wasn't until it was being loaded I peered in and saw it had just 55K miles. From the lack of wear on the pedals to the cleanliness of the interior to the perfect compression numbers, we had all the evidence we needed that this mileage was genuine - but buffing ou that small corner of the fender leaves no doubt this is one of the lowest mileage short wheelbase Troopers in existence.