Quite fancy a Jimny for just knocking around in, but they are usually rotted out, or stupid money
l think jimnys are fantastic little things will run rings around a landrover offroad but you summed it up perfectly they rot faster than a fast thing and if you go for a newer one thats not rotten you will need very deep pockets, but i still love em, i have 6 in various states of rotted , bits missing or awaiting a rebuild, so unless you enjoy welding rust and underseal your going to have to stump up some serious dosh, but as much as i like them they dont really make any sense as a daily driver, apart from the mentioned rust problem they are terrible on fuel insurance can be steep road tax is high and they cant tow very much, landrovers have their place, towing a trailer full of sheep to market at 60mph no problem throw a bag of crisps in a suzuki and its close to over weight, you really need a reason to be offroad to have a jimny unless you like wasting money on fuel, 20 something to the gallon where as my fiesta diesel is doing over 60 to the gallon
but all that said they make a great base for a project, im building a little rock crawler/buggy out of one or at least the chassis off one im swapping the axles to sj as they are stronger and i have a pair with arb air lockers in , ive shortened the chassis down to under 80"
i had it shot blasted and primed as i dont like underseal lol, then as i found some green paint left over from another project it went all greeny
for motivation it started off having a pug diesel engine and box from a 306 turned round the other way and fitted at the front to give me a further reduction of 4 to 1
but in my quest to be as light as possible i have since bought a K series engine out of a metro, think its 1100cc the early version with an SU carb nice and simples so thats going in and the pug is coming back out
im going to roll some tube to form the roll cage best way i can describe it is egg shaped a bit like this
obviously as i have shortened the chassis its offroad only but you would be hard pressed to see where ive shortened it
just need to get my garage at home finished so i can bring a few of my projects home and get on with them