I have a 2018 subaru forester with the 6-spd manual.  It has 8.7" of ground clearance and is awesome in the snow/sand.  I feel like it could do 90% of what this thing can do, especially if i swapped the tires and gave it a mild lift.

I’m most curious about the service aspect of Volvo. With them going all electric the service intervals are going to be greatly increased. I would hate to be a technician who only did warranty interior repairs and gets one brake job a month.  I guess the independents will pick up the slack for all the gas powered…

Don’t know if its the green or the similiarity in the badge but I’m getting some Austin Martin vibes of this car.

The only small truck that you could get 1. A V8 2. A full 8 ft. bed 3. front AND rear LSD.  Love mine, has power windows and mirrors and a bitchin cassette deck

While your at it swap in a decent set of heavy duty shocks, I’ve got some on my dakota and it makes a world of difference. Also holley made a complete kit to swap in a gen 3 hemi!!! I’m personally thinking of doing a 5.9 magnum swap and making an 1991 R/T that never existed.

VTEC yo

Those back seats look like the plastic bucket seats in the back of cop cars.  Pretty uncomfortable but very easy to clean.

I had service writers just say quote me for everything, outside of the symptom which the car was brought in for.  The weirdest was a 1993 mercury tracer that parts/labor added up to 1200.  (shocks all around, sway bar end links, a few other odd and ends).  I ended up doing ALL of it to my surprise.  And to FoMoCo’s…

I’m thinking fleet sales will be a lot of where these go. A lot of govt agencies and corporation require a small pickup with good gas mileage and a cheap starting price. The original s10/ranger did that whereas the new ones are a bit too big and too pricey.

that focus group must feel real safe in a camaro, that thing has the visibility of a bunker

My thoughts on this are from a mechanic perspective so hear me out, often the person screwing you is the service writer, not the mechanic. Service writers upsell all kinds of crazy stuff (flushes are the big money maker) and often lean on the mechanic to try to steer their opinion towards a big money job. Also…

there are a lot of other cross braces out there simpson has all kinds of metal brackets for bracing

I’m guessing ski nautique as those were fairly popular with the ford 351w, just make sure you seal that transmission my friend had some problems with trans oil leaks on his.

If not I’m about to start one.

My main issue here is that they put the base (the 2x4) on grass. As soon as they start pulling the engine out the force will make that 2x4 sink into the grass.  easiest thing to do would to be to anchor them to concrete blocks with tapcons.  Having such a poor base is a recipe for disastor

Good luck finding a GX460 for $30-35k that isn’t super high mileage or beat up.  It’s hard to even find a 4runner in that price range.  And honestly of the two I’d go for the 4runner TRD pro.  The air suspension on the GX will lead to some heartbreak down the road.  Also the maintenance on the 4runner is slightly…

They also have really high resale value which helps lessen the blow of the cost of entry.

That would make it MORE like a subaru. Sidenote, if subaru made a lifted BRZ with plastic cladding that sold under their new Wilderness brand they would probably sell like hotcakes.

I also think 1 mpg is probably within most people’s margin of error for driving a pickup.

I like having both personally.  Mainly because the passenger can also access the volume and hvac and adjust it.  Touch screens are super difficult on bumpy roads and in most work type settings where you are either a) wearing gloves or b) on terrain that is difficult to accurately use a touch screen.