I think the first was actually Chevy in 1963 when they introduced a coil sprung trailing arm suspension in the rear. And confusingly, you could option a leaf pack in Chevy and get rid of the standard coil spring, but in the GMC twin it was the reverse (standard leaf spring, coil as optional). It gets even more…

I think the complaint is more that Subaru used to give you the power and performance of cars significantly more expensive than them. Now, not so much. Everyone seems to have added significant levels of power over the years and Subaru has pretty much stagnated. WRXs and STIs just haven’t made similar advancements as…

The point of the Tundra is that it is a thinking man’s full-size truck

Maybe I’m biased, but I’d for sure take the GMT400. The OBS GM trucks are gaining in value, have a perfect mix of style, useability, features, safety, etc without being too complicated/modern to work on for most DIY mechanics. Those year Fords just don’t seem to work as well for me. They do look cool, but just not…

Maybe it’s just me, but I had always thought those looked like cheap knockoff of the late 40s Chevy pickups. The E and M Series Studebaker’s also look a bit awkward. I don’t think it was until the Champ that Studebaker made a really good looking truck.

The thing is, in Canada, the “average” user gets an annual refund so as to cover that year’s additional costs due to the carbon tax itself. What ends up happening is that the wealthy and other heavy users pay more than they get back while everyone else gets more money back than they put in (or in the very least…

I’d say GM had continually made the best looking trucks on the market, with exception of a few years where Ford took over in the mid-50s since the beginning of GM trucks until probably 2016 when the K2XX refresh happened. Then, 2019 happened and GM just decided to crash and burn with it’s current styling.

Yeah, I always kind of laugh about it too. I own both a 2 door and a 4 door pickup. I think most people greatly underestimate the utility of some extra cab space and overestimate the utility of a foot or two more bed space. There is a reason 4 doors fly off the shelves, even for most fleet vehicles it seems these days…

Exactly! I also think a big part of it too is that people’s wages haven’t matched the overall increases in the cost of living over the years. That means when people do buy a car, they typically keep it for longer and specifically look for a more versatile vehicle to begin with. Gone are the days of having a coupe for…

Can someone show me a crossover with a car alternative that has more room due to its car-like suspension components? Most crossovers that I am aware of have, more or less, the same hard points to mount all the suspension bits to. Typically all the suspension differences tends to be in things like control arms,…

As the owner of one, Softopper>Bestop and both are better than whatever this is. No wonder it died out.

I guess I don’t see the advantage of this over a Softopper or Bestop if you’re looking for better versatility than a hard cap. This thing seems way more complicated, heavier, more expensive, more difficult to entirely remove, and takes up 1/3rd of the bed when not in use compared to the collapsible soft tops. I own a…

I’m not saying modern vehicles don’t or won’t rust. Just that, as a whole, they are much better than anything from the past.

Yes, thicker gauge panels will take longer to rust out all things being equal; but new cars back in the day essentially started rusting from day one because of worse paint/primer, worse paint application, worse weather-stripping & weather seals, less rust inhibitors to begin with, as well as almost no one but Porsche…

Are you seriously claiming modern trucks are more likely to rot and rust? You must have not been around anytime before the 80s or 90s. There are many good reasons people keep their cars longer than they used to back in the day, one of the big ones is new cars don’t typically rust out as fast as old cars.

Don’t forget cost too. Going to TBI injection system vs a carburetor is probably 30-50% more expensive if you’ve already got an engine laying around. If you’re going more modern to something like port or multipoint injection then you’re going to need to spend multiples more than a nice carb setup. If you want direct,…

They can still make improvements to an old platform. Toyota did with the 3rd gen Tacoma, even though it is essentially a 2nd gen. Honestly, the 2nd/3rd gen Tacoma looks to be a similar level of reuse & update as the Z here.

True, but the MK7 GTI is even older than the current WRX & STI platform and also about to be replaced, yet VW still has a bigger percentage power gain over those years. Subaru is squarely at the bottom of the list. Everyone else somehow managed to add more than 20% power in 17 years, except for Subaru.

I think the problem is that everyone else has made pretty big advances in power while Subaru has stagnated. Unfortunately for us enthusiasts, it’s the most pronounced in their performance models.

Kinja’d