[subiesailor]

I've often wanted/wondered about a 'nudge bar' or the like for the Baja. Is the front structure of the car/truck tough enough to deal with one of those in an actual collision at other-than-parking-lot-speeds? Or, will it simply bend the subframe, and need $10,000 worth of frame-straightening-machine time for a relatively minor collision?

Pretty much zero unibody built vehicles today that you can mount a heavy built bull bar too and expect the unibody behind it to stay intact when levered hard by impact on the bull bar.

These big bars are giant levers mounted to a light weight frame designed to take very specific loads and being levered hard vs a strait on impact is one of the loads they simply are not built to handle. Your better off hitting a deer with the stock bumper - having the hood wiped out - busted radiator and other soft target stuff - smashed windshield - then having it hit a large bull bar hand having the frame of the car wrecked by the levered load bending the front of the car starting at the frame. You can replace a bent hood and busted radiator and smashed window easily - you can't fix a bent frame easily or at all.

Only good thing these bars are for on unibody cars are places to mount additional lights and by having a light built bar that will break before it damages the frame of the car is a good thing.

A full off road bumper bolted to the frame of the car with a bull bar welded to the bumper is a little better but it will still generate levered loads on the front sub frame that can bend the frame more so than a standard bumper taking a strait on hit etc.

A full frame vehicle is a different story you can have crazy strong bull bars that can actually be used to push other vehicles or in our case on the ranch herd large bulls nudging them along ie the bull bar etc with out any negative impact to the solid full frame its mounted too.