I need to figure it out, as I am going to be without a vehicle when we move back to the states next year.
We will need 2, I am thinking I want the wife to have a Wrangler Unlimited.
I wish the bastards still made a Ford Excursion.
I am going to look for a Ford F250 SWB crew cab in gas.
How do the Ford gas motors stack up in the F250?
If you're still looking, I've got an '08 F250 w/ the V10. Stick with the '07s and later, the earlier versions were 2-valve engines, less power, worse mileage and had a nasty penchant for blowing sparkplugs out (literally ripping the plug along with the threads around it out of the head).
Personally, I wouldn't recommend the V8, when I was researching it, it didn't get any better gas mileage, but definitely has less power. When I driving my truck home the day I bought it, I passed an E350 van with the V8 going up a grade. That thing was screaming while my truck wasn't working hard at all.
The down side to a gas truck is that the best mileage is 13-14mpg on the freeway with the wind at your back and it quickly worsens when you start hauling a load.
My reserve unit has Diesel F350s and I had to make several trips from Riverside to San Diego and back, a couple of times in the government trucks and once in my truck.
The Diesel trucks used 1/2 tank of gas going to San Diego and back, my truck used 1/2 tank just going from Riverside to San Diego.
So, the extra $.20 to $.50 a gallon for diesel pays for itself when gas is almost $4 a gallon. So, at that point, the question is whether you can afford the extra $8000 up front for the diesel.
As far as hunting, I love my truck, but it's big, so it's limited in where it can go, plus I don't want to beat it up (too much).
My ideal hunting truck would be a Toyota Hilux w/ the crew cab and diesel (the ones that you see from North Africa to Afghanistan), but we can't get them here in the U.S.
Next from there would be a Jeep of some sort.