That is interesting...

If you decide to go into off-roading, my advice would be to get a vehicle with solid axles in the front and the rear. Independent front suspension (early '90's and up GM, '97 and up F-150, most newer SUV's, etc) is expensive to fix, and on a trail, you want as much simplicity and rugged brute-strength as you can get your hands on.

Also, if you think that you're going to need the extra ground clearance, it's okay to lift, but IMHO DON'T lift the vehicle solely for the "cool" factor. Lifting also raises the center of gravity, and that becomes a big issue when playing on the rocks or whatnot. For the same reason, I wouldn't lift any more than necessary. Granted I've never done any real mudding, but I've never off-roaded a raised vehicle, and haven't had any problems (okay, I've had one, but I shouldn't have done that in the first place; see attached pic and don't try to take a 4 wheeled vehicle up a motorcycle jump ). Also, if you need and/or want to lift, that's another big strike against IFS simply because the price to lift an IFS-equipped vehicle skyrockets real quick.



Beyond that, make sure you've got a reliable engine (if you're rock-crawling, a diesel would actually be a really good idea, so you don't worry about flooding anything due to weird angles) and a stout drivetrain, and you should be good to go. Just make sure you know what your vehicle can do (or have a winch and/or buddy up with someone in another vehicle) and know what you yourself can do.

Just my $.02...good luck!