I feel you. My little truck, 34 years old and climbing, gets more use as an actual truck than any of the fullsizers parked in the lot at work. I know this for a fact, I’ve talked at length with their owners.

Well the Datsuns have all collapsed into ruddy brown heaps. And a fair portion of the S-10s, though I seem them from time to time.

No, I wouldn’t.  That’s the same size as the Tacoma.  Much too large to consider a compact truck.

I heard it defined very succinctly once, and I think it’s fairly accurate, as far as it goes:

Yeah, there are no compact PU out there until the Mav drops and even that is going to stretch the definition of “truck,” being really a tall sedan with an open trunk.

I think you might have needed to add /s to that.

Even compact pickups that get 35mpg? What about when I’m using mine to carpool with my wife?

Applying the Daytona name to a truck is a travesty. Applying it to a FWD model was also a travesty but at least in its final iteration, with the Turbo III engine, it was capable of sufficient performance (for the time) to be nearly worthy of the name. And let’s be clear - Daytona was the model name. Not an equipment…

Usually we look to Torch for the WTF answer, some bizarre JDM kei pocket car or the most obscure VW built only in Brazil for one year before they put the drivetrain in the other end of the car, stuff like that.

There’s an ‘06 Scion xB for sale in Chicago for just $4500. The exterior and interior both look good, five-speed, black but you can’t have everything.

Five hundred miles is more than enough. Three hundred is enough, 400 was a pie-in-the-sky wish and five hundred exceeds how far my own truck will go on one tank. I sure as hell can’t go that far without stopping.

I’m all about lighter cars. This smacks of the Velorex, I’m all for it.

One more and I’m done:

I can’t remember whether it was the bottom-tier model, but I remember an old Subaru with the manual driver’s seat height adjustment, which I thought was so ridiculously practical.

They might be inefficient by themselves, but hook it up to a train and then you’re talking about ton-miles per gallon of fuel, and trains win that contest every time.  If you want to do better, you need ships under sail.

If you’re the kind of woman whose clothes fall off due to car-based stimulation, please shop elsewhere. I have too much taste for you.

Something along those lines. American rail travel is ridiculously expensive, slow and inconvenient compared to air; all those issues need to be addressed at the highest levels if we’re going to seriously make an effort to get travelers out of planes and onto trains. Because even the most inefficient train is FAR more…

It’s gorgeous, the Mitsubishi take on the Celica’s take on the Mustang. The interior looks absolute pristine.

I’d like to talk more about American rail.  We should expand, streamline and modernize service.  And I think it would be a good idea to create a passenger-only rail system that didn’t rely on such massive hardware.

I would also include the tomato. Some tomatoes seriously underscore the “fruit” part of their geneology.