By Kimberly Dunbar

Some people love their music. Some people love the Red Sox. Rich Banfield loves Jeeps. Banfield is as fanatical about Jeeps as Boston fans are about their sports. He has been driving his 1986 Jeep CJ7 for 16 years (and admits to owning, at various points along the way, an ‘85 CJ7, an ‘87 YJ, a ‘71CJ5, an ‘88 YJ, and an ‘01TJ), has been running Jeep clubs for over 20 years, and recently opened his own store, 7SlotGrills.com, a member of the United 4WD Association, in order to share “the Jeep thing” with the rest of the world.

“Opening a store was something that I have wanted to do for a long time but never got around to it,” said Banfield. In August 2005, the timing was right, and Banfield and his friend came up with a name for his dream: 7 Slot Grills. “The name is a play on words. There are seven slots in a Jeep’s grille,” he explains for the benefit of the non-Jeep folks in the audience. From there, Banfield registered the name online, started gathering product, and launched the site in December of the same year.

7SlotGrills.com is an online store that specializes in an array of Jeep brand gifts, apparel, jewelry, glassware, signs, accessories and Crown Automotive Jeep replacement parts. Banfield says that he is also starting to collect Hummer gear, as those monsters also have seven slots in their grilles. The store is only a cyber entity right now, which Banfield likes because anyone from anywhere can visit and purchase items at any hour of the day. “I wanted to make it easy for people,” he added.

The website features all kinds of Jeep information, including some on Patriot Jeepers, a Jeep-only club (with a 31” tire minimum and a 33” maximum) that Banfield and friends Roger Barton, Paul Dockery and Nick Warchol started in 2002. In fact, the club, which is very structured and run by the four like a serious business, provided the push Banfield needed to go through with opening the online store. When Banfield organized a Jeep Run, his friend used to film the action and convert it to a DVD.

“People started requesting copies of the DVDs,” remembers Banfield. There were so many requests for the DVD that he put the Jeep Run footage on the Patriot Jeepers website (www.patriotjeepers.com) where everyone who wanted one could have access to it. “That’s how the idea of the online store got started,” he added.

Banfield has more 4 wheel drive clubs under his belt, too, even though Patriot Jeepers is the most recently formed. Let’s rewind to 1988 when he took his first official Run, a free-of-charge friendly race through the back roads and woods in a four wheel drive vehicle. “My first run was with a Suzuki club. It wasn’t what I was looking for, so I started my own club,” recalls Banfield, who went on to start New England 4 Wheelers in 1988 and Baystate Jeepers in 1998 (it was Baystate that the three friends left to start Patriot Jeepers).

According to Banfield, the obsession with Jeeps is universal and there is a mutual understanding amongst Jeep owners. “When you see another Jeep Wrangler coming, you typically wave,” said Banfield. “We’re saying ‘see you on the trail sometime’ or ‘we understand why you are driving that.’” There’s a little rivalry between owners of older Jeeps with round headlights and those who own newer, square-headlight models, but for the most part everyone is considered part of the brotherhood.

Banfield said Jeeps are popular because they have done so much for the public. “They helped win a war, they can make it through the snow, and are great for civilian use,” he says. Plus, there’s just an aura of cool around them, and they lend themselves so perfectly to modification and personalization. And now Jeeps have given Banfield a hobby ~ and a career ~ he loves.

“I hope to do this full time someday,” said Banfield, who works for Lifta constructing high quality metal cabinets used by the racing industry. “If you can find a job doing what you love, then it’s not work. I love what I’m doing, and I hope others do, too.”

Keep an eye out for Banfield’s 2nd annual “Big Four Wheel Drive” event on Oct. 14 at the Hebert Candy Mansion in Shrewsbury. The event is open to all 4WD vehicles and will include 4WD clubs, 4WD vendors, an RTI ramp and winch contest, swap meet spots, The Big Air Up contest, an RC Rock Crawler obstacle course and race, and a Granny low contest, and will offer information, activities and entertainment for the whole family.

And make sure to visit WWW.7SLOTGRILLS.COM for some insane 4WD event links, photos, and Jeep stuff galore!

And now meet Rich’s ‘86 CJ7:

4” lift 33” tires
3:73 gears
Locker in Back
L/S in front
Full roll cage
Onboard air
Warn 8274 8,000 lb Winch Stock 258 (which just pulled two abandoned vehicles from Mica MT)
Webber carb T-18 granny low 4 speed