I’m curious to see how big the cabin is, particularly the rear seats. The Maverick looks great as a transportation truck. The F150 is ubiquitous, comfortable, and available (well announced as coming soon) in a full electric version. The Ranger seems like it might be the best actual off-road truck of the bunch and more…

Though even that can be a chicken or egg things as it’s possible that the rear drums weren’t providing as much stopping power are rear discs, so the fronts had to work harder and wore more quickly.

Spectacular review, Rory. When I first read about the Blackwings, I told my wife basically what you said here: I am eager for electric cars to arrive, but I’ll miss gas engines and I’m glad that a number of automakers seem to be going all out on their swan song.

What does your “it’s” refer to here, Rory?

Yep this is exactly how I feel. My 90s 318ti is objectively really slow, but I just love driving it. The design is even a bit older than that as it has the e30s rear suspension set up which tracks worse than the e36, but in my mind that makes the car even more fun.

I own a little 90s BMW and a minivan. And I would consider getting a Challenger. I like that it’s unapologetically an old muscle car that is slightly updated for modern times. It has personality that few cars go. It seems like it would be fun to have one as the denouement of my gasoline era driving. 

I’m not saying that there aren’t a lot of great cars to drive these days. I personally really like the Challengers/Chargers and think they are modern cars with real personalities.

New cars are objectively better by basically ever metric. That doesn’t necessarily mean they are more fun, as fun often comes from dealing with imperfections, but overall they are definitely better.

I assume that it’s a Scipio invades the Carthaginian homeland situation after Harley crossed the Alps with the Pan American.

Yep. I still have a 318ti that I picked up as an extra car in place of a long term rental a few years ago and loved so much that I kept it. I commute in it in Las Vegas where you have a lot of shortish on ramps and an average driver speed of 75. It’s totally fine. Just keep the revs up.

They/the kid have the money to buy it outright. Putting aside his half of the money in some sort of interest bearing account that autopays the note each month is functionally the same thing (if you never need to pay it off, just take the money out and do it) while allowing him to build credit.

Have your window buttons ever punched through into the space beneath when pressing them?

Also you currently have the FWD Transit Connect carrying nearly that much payload with FWD for thousands of commercial customers the world over.

I actually live in the desert and have a Transit Connect. It sometimes sounds like I’m killing it as I bounce along dirt roads, but man do I love that big, square cargo area for my gear totes.

There is a third row. The provided picture just doesn’t really capture it.

The only minivan that is this size is the Transit Connect (which this actually looks a bit like a stylized version of). If you keep the nose short and make the body boxy, you can cram a ton of stuff in that footprint while still being notably smaller than most of today’s “mini” vans.

I like it. I am very much in the demographic the benefits from this style of off road-lite family cars as I spend a lot of time exploring BLM/NP desert dirt roads while hauling around a kid and often biking/camping/paddling gear. This looks pretty ideal for that.

“It’s one banana, Michael. What can it cost? 10 dollars?”

I love you Tom - you’re my favorite writer on this site right now and I’ve learned a ton from you - but you really need to stop taking the iSeeCars stuff so uncritically as it is generally eeeply flawed, this article included.

I will be curious to see how they do it. If it’s with longer springs, that makes me more excited for it for the reasons you mention. The aftermarket lifts are 3.5in. I haven’t read much about people’s experience with them for this generation as they’ve just came out. Last generation’s had good to mixed reviews, with…