Where I live lots of people drive garage queen trucks that will never see speck of dust or feather of weight. Then there’s my neighbor. He buys all the lifestyle toys, and uses the hell out of them. Every 2 years he shows up with some new zillion dollar bro truck, then immediately loads it with all sorts of nasty…

That’s actually also a gimmick video. They loaded it up with cinder blocks (you can see them tumble in the bed) and fired it at a much higher speed. There’s other similar ‘facility testing’ videos that get spread around also in those spammy Youtube compilation videos.

It always amazes me how insecure some people get when they hear: “People buy things they don’t need”.

Ah... you’ve seen the VW PROMO video that is pretending to be a real crash test. But in reality, the T3 was also a death trap... just SLIGHTLY less of a death trap compared to past generations:

Not all of them are ugly...

He’s basically talking about a HiAce or a Transit with a bed. They can be reasonably safe:

It always amazes me when a bunch of people decide what other people should drive. People don’t need a sports car but some love them. There are many examples of what people ‘don’t’ need. I work hard for my money and I will buy what I want. Car companies build what sells. 

Forward control probably isn’t going to happen, but vans still exist. A pickup based on a modern van would still be a more efficient use of wheelbase than a modern pickup.

Cabover works for larger trucks where safety standards mostly don’t exist, but... yeah.

There are lots and lots of safe cabover vans and trucks in Europe. They can be constructed safely just fine.
Of course, pre-2000's cabover vans and trucks are death traps, except for the VW t3.

These things were total death traps in their day. Consumer Reports hated on the VW bus for the same reason. Correctly. 

No problems. There’s a cheap mod for that too...

I don’t think you could build these things today....not remotely safe enough and manufacturers would spend a great of additional time in deposition/court; more than they do now....You wouldn’t get a poor safety rating, you would get ‘no’ safety rating...I can see the handiness of it around town, but not over 20-25 MPH…

Who needs a truck

Americans prefer trucks that look like angry big rigs, with long protruding hoods to overcome our shortcomings... I’m always amazed at the number of landscaping companies and subcontractors that drive crew cab 3/4 or 1 ton trucks, towing dual axle trailers, instead of just using something like this that would work so…

It’s all fun and games and great visibility until IIHS tests it and gives it a ‘poor’ rating for lack of crumple zones....

Even more than that, its unibody with frame rails so its actually a hybrid design.

The upshot of that is that parts yards found themselves utterly fat on XJ panels and components. Replacement parts are absurdly inexpensive.

ZJ/WJ Grand Cherokees and XJs were among the most common victims of Cash for Clunkers, but hopefully enough survived that they’ll never see FJ pricing. Good grief those are insane.