My 1974 IH Scout II is likely the best overall 4 wheel drive I ever owned:

Around 1981 or 1982 we went to Oregon to buy this International Harvester Scout II vehicle I think we bought it in Medford Oregon I believe. It was a yellow one with a 6 cylinder engine and it was a four wheel drive with a locked rear end.

What was amazing about this vehicle was that I could literally push 2 to 3 feet of unplowed snow while driving down paved or dirt roads with no problem because of the locked rear end and snow tires.

However, one day i was pushing 2 to 3 feet of snow and finally realized "Hey! If I get stuck this vehicle is going to be stuck here for up to 6 months or until the snow melts enough to get a wrecker in here to tow me out of here."

So, I could literally go places that no other vehicle i knew of could then. I wanted to get a winch for the front end but couldn't really afford to buy one then because I was already buying land and building a home and I was only 32 to 34 years old when I bought this vehicle.

The drawbacks of this vehicle were more citified problems. For example, because it was a floor stick shift 4 wheel drive my wife blew her knee because the clutch was too stiff on bumper to bumper freeway driving. Luckily I was sitting next to her when she blew her knee from the clutch. The other problem with this vehicle was rust. It started to rust in the roof that could be removed with a few bolts which turned it into a convertible 4 wheel drive. However, I didn't do this mostly because of potential leaks if I did this. Also, the roof was pretty heavy and you might need either a winch or about 4 or 5 guys to lift it off and put it somewhere too.

However, these are the only two complaints I had about this vehicle because for the backwoods there was never a 4 wheel drive that from my point of view compared with this one for me. But, I really wished I had a winch then because I could have more safely gone deeper into really deep snow and pulled myself out with the winch tied to a tree or boulder. But, there also can be a problem with the wires snapping and cutting you in two from the stress of a winch too so there is also a reason NOT to have a winch unless you are standing somewhere the snapping wire doesn't cut you in two with some kind of electronic remote maybe like a smartphone controlling the winch or something like this so you can protect yourself and others.