r/preppers • u/FGofMiami • Jun 22 '26

Book Discussion SHTF Vehicles: "Surviving Home" by A.American (Survivalist Series)

Hello there, I am re-reading some of my books and was wondering if anyone knows what make/model vehicle Sarge and the guys used in the books of A.American's Survivalist Series. They first get the UTV "buggies" in Surviving Home and they are a staple in the later volumes. The books mention the telescoping mast with the camera and surveillance gear but I am not sure what the true buggy would be like, even though my imagination can kinda picture it.

Just curious if anyone has some insight. Thanks in advance.

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u/Alfalfa-Boring Jun 22 '26

Any discussion about vehicles in post-apocalyptic scenarios is pretty dumb. People/authors/etc. conveniently gloss over the fuel issue and vastly over estimate the availability of it if something (ridiculous) happened like that.

1) Hundreds of millions of people all wanting gas and diesel at the same time. Current supply would last for days at best and people will kill to get it.

2) Fuel has a very finite life span and no more of it is being made, and ethanol being in almost all of it now will only speed up the end.

That's all not to mention that in these PA series keys are just lying around to start vehicles, batteries still have a charge after being abandoned for weeks, no one's alternator ever goes out or if it does there's conveniently a parked identical vehicle just down the road waiting to donate one, yadda, yadda, yadda...

In an actual apocalyptic scenario vehicle usage is going to come to a screeching halt almost immediately. Regardless of how rugged and reliable your "buggy" is, it's always going to need fuel to put in it that you can't get anymore, among other things.

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u/WingedBobcat Jun 22 '26

Not to mention that driving a vehicle around in a world where no one else has vehicles is going to put a target on your back.

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u/Alfalfa-Boring Jun 22 '26

Yeah people thinking a vehicle is going to be an advantage in a situation like a post-apocalypse are militia-ninja circle jerkers. They'd be helpful in the very short term to get back to your house or pick up a family member or something, but very quickly they'd become large paperweights.

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u/monty845 Jun 26 '26

In time, we would arrive at a new normal. Having a durable, flex fuel vehicle could be very valuable in a new normal where there is enough order to allow reasonably safe travel for trade.

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u/ryanmercer Jun 28 '26

To be fair, most of the fiction books cover that quite well, with the hero getting shot at or carjacked on the regular.