As a former offroader, thumbs inside the wheel is just asking for a bad time. 

Make them sound like TIE fighters...

Minivans fell out of popularity bigtime because they became synonymous with mom-mobiles. Those of us who were kids who rode in them in the 80s and 90s bolted from the association, and minivan-driving moms moved on to Explorers and Lexi and whatnot.

Uh - the Defenders imported to the US in the 90s were extremely supply-limited (I believe only 500 D110s were imported in 1993, for example), so it’s massively unfair to use them as a basis for comparison.

Well, first, that seems like a really awful work environment and I’m surprised they’re managing to retain talent in a space where talent is in crazy high demand (cloud, content delivery, etc) with such garbage policies.

Eh. While I don’t really wish ill on anyone, I also can’t deny a measure of satisfaction watching karma work through its task list.

Back in the early 2000s when I was involved in offroading, I knew a ton of pickup owners who actually used the things for more than commuting (as in offroading, towing, hauling around loads of dirty stuff). And they were fairly evenly split between Ford, GM, and Dodge. And the Taco guys. Hell - I even have a Silverado…

Heh. I’d love to see said shitstorm.

Middle-aged white guy here, too. Dude. If you don’t understand that race can lead to massively different outcomes in encounters with law enforcement, I don’t know what to tell you. 

I had an ‘02 Xterra and loved it. But on that they kinda wrapped the cheapness into the charm of it. And the steering and road feel were just so well sorted on it.

Drove an ‘05 when they came out and hated it. It felt toylike.

They’re both problems.

People don’t want to stoop and crouch down while falling way down into their drivers seat, and then have to claw their way back up to standing when getting out.

Let’s see. Last year I flew 4 times for pleasure (5 if you count a late January trip this year). Company I work for has generous vacation policies, and we’ve got three kids who we want to expose to things.

My wife has massive anxiety about flying. And I hate everything about air travel EXCEPT for the actual flying…

Old Land Rover Series I-III and the Defender don’t count because they expectedly look great. But the new L663 Defender pulls off the steelies with aplomb - and I wasn’t expecting that.

Conversely, I think WWII is also one of the reasons flying boats held on as long as they did. Not so much in Europe, but in the Pacific, the vast stretches of ocean and the fantastic loiter time of the PBY Catalina and its friends made one of those right place/right time situations. Before helicopters to handle S&R…

Fuck this garbage.

Did you really think Cap would die in Winter Soldier? Or Spiderman in Homecoming?

Used to drive a Land Rover Defender. Anybody who has knows that its gas gauge is...approximate. Depending on whether you’re turning left or right you can have 1/4 tank or 3/4 tank.

Neutral...

Just because someone is the sole occupant of a vehicle doesn’t mean they don’t need those seats or that space. Maybe they’ve already dropped the kids off at school. Maybe they’re trying to sneak in an errand before they have to pick them up. Maybe they’re just getting to and from work, where kids and spouses and dogs…