Tom McPharland, a contributor to Jalopnik. He also owns Automatchconsulting.com. It is a service he essentially invented after doing it as a hobby.
He haggles for exactly what you want so you don’t have to.

From a ruined nameplate perspective, I would offer the Blazer and the Pathfinder.
The current Blazer is straight up disrespectful to the offroad chops of its predecessor (or at least the collective imagined memory of those capabilities)

The current Pathfinder (5th gen) is a smidge better than the 4th gen, which was a…

Fair point, but how does anyone become a “known car guy” in today’s day and age? Maybe this show will make us all say, “Why did I ever bother with Counting Cars when this hidden talent was right before us?”

You both likely have states that use fuel taxes to pay for road maintenance. Whether they do that well or not is a different story. Whether those monies are firewalled or are 100% fungible is another story.

You would be pissing of John Maynard Keynes, methinks. Adam would wonder how that would affect the world supply of gold, or some other Mercantilism thing.

So, I went to the class, got my endorsement, and then looked around. In my area, motorcyclists are given very little respect or leeway. I was only ever considering a Honda Shadow (which should tell you how old I am).

No need to be a douche about the man’s truck. Use it as a backdrop for the story on tires (fortunately, Jalopnik never runs those /s), but don’t crap on what looks like a build he or she enjoys.

Neutral: Luxury? Cruise Control and Automatic.

That should be “...pore...”, not “...pour...”.

This. It sucks, but the demand curve is fairly inelastic for basic transportation, apparently. It only takes sliding that supply curve just a little to the left before we see the price increase way more than average Joe thought it should.

Meh...

That turn signal clicking at the end. That is, somehow, so absolutely spot on that I love the wreck. To be honest, it didn’t seem like much, just a modest rollover.

Man, I don’t want to nitpick, but a 4 day weekend that ends at noon on Sunday? That is pretty much just the one we are in right now. If you get the family out the door by 8AM Thursday, that is a 76 hour trip, 1000 miles of it driving.....

I realize the route is probably “TBD”, but will it be the overlanding that involves “camping wherever I stop” or the overlanding “I am driving on sketch-ass 3rd world roads, please let me get to my next hotel/hostel/non-hostile place of rest”?

Here is the funny thing: My brother is in Colorado (I’m in Virginia), and we plan on meeting every other year “in the middle.” This last one was in West Virginia, which means I am leaning more his way next time.

UP came up, with options for off-roading and white-water rafting.  It looks like there are some places in…

Which gen Xterra? Where do you get your mud?

Depending on how hot your summers are, I would suggest that the glue adds its scent. Nissan fanboi here, and I can tell you that they had one supplier in the early 90's, based on smell alone.

2nd Gear: There is a good bit on Last Week Tonight about Unions from this Sunday. People here should give it a look; it will describe how hard companies fight unions and how small the penalties are for violating Federal Law in this regard.

I am not a fan of all unions, but I’m thinking Toyota is being a little…

“...we’ll just eat it on the back end...”
*giggle*

Yes, I’m 14...

How would you like to spend 70 grand for a car and fail to get parts because the company is gone?
Agreed.

I remember far enough back when AT&T got into desktops. Whole companies bought into the ecosystem.
Oops.