1996 Toyota 4Runner – A Mid-Size Sport Utility Vehicle

There’s this principle that people attending business school will quote endlessly. The story goes like this: a chief executive may only be able to take a company to a certain level, and sometimes it takes new blood to bring the company to a higher plane. Although this feature has nothing to do with Wall Street, it has everything to do with lying on concrete.

Now, here we have the story of the FloorRunner, a truck previously owned by Negative Camber’s Glen Magrino. The SUV was body dropped, juiced, and laid out on Racing Hart C5s, but sat in primer for a long time. Eventually, he just decided it was time to move on from the legendary build for reasons that only he knows. But after the CEO of this 4Runner stepped down, the new blood came in and took it to the next level. That new person in charge was Sam Robinson.

Sometimes, these stories take a turn for the worst. The previous owner built a hack job or something like that, and the new guy has to clean up the mess. But the work that Glen poured into the 4Runner was nothing short of spectacular. The front clip was swapped with one from a ’98 Tacoma to help the truck lay out, the hydraulics where phenomenal, and the sheet metal work was second to none. But Sam wanted to put his own mark on the truck; take the excellent platform that Glen had started, and customize it to his own specs.

Let’s start with the suspension. Those who’ve worked with hydraulics know that they can be finicky. Sometimes they’re amazing and ride like a dream, and other times you’re going through seals faster than Heidi Klum. Even though he was new to the juice scene and had his doubts, he decided to give it a try for a little bit and turned his attention elsewhere. Since the bodywork was started, Sam cleaned things up and got it primed and blocked about a year after cash traded hands.

And that’s where things sat come July 2006, and for a few years the 4Runner didn’t see much progress. It wasn’t until 2009 that Sam decided that the juice had to go, and that’s when he swapped out the Pro Hopper kit for the comfort of ‘bags and compressors. Then the truck sat for a bit longer, while Sam tried to get the timing right to get it in for paint, then the stereo, and next thing you know, the SUV is dragging into Texas Heatwave 2013 with a fresh paintjob – ready to load up on trophies.

Although the build spanned a good period of time, the end product is the result of two builders who shared similar visions for the same 4Runner. It started off going one way, and then the new CEO Came in and lifted it of its plateau. At the end of it all, we have one of the cleanest 4Runners to ever grace the pages of Mini Truckin’. Sometimes it takes two to make a thing go right.