This drove me crazy when I bought by Taco. I wanted a TRD OR, so it meant choosing between the chode bed or a slushbox. In the end, the joy of rowing my own gears won out, but on long camping trips and dump runs the short bed is annoying.

The stickers or custom paint on their ski box, obviously.

The Pro-4x versions are effectively equipped like a Tacoma TRD Off-Road down to the suspension and locking rear diff. What it’s missing is a TRD Pro equivalent and Toyotas excellent ATRAC and crawl control.

It looks fine, but it is essentially arriving at the tail end of the Tacoma, Ranger and Colorado lifecycles without many tricks up its sleeves. It has a razor thin edge on power, interior and price; but I can’t imagine choosing this over the competition now, let alone in 2 years when the bar has been raised again.

Mixed feelings on this one. I started working after school at 13 to afford a car and kept going through all of High School. I missed out on playing sports, joining clubs and weekends with friends.

As a Vermonter, the answer is a Subaru wagon. They are slow, safe, AWD and available in a manual. Skip anything with a turbo, set aside money for a set of Hakkapeliittas and send your spawn off to experiment in the cavernous rear hatch.

You caught me. I’m planning to build an adorable Ford Maverick based technical with Hello Kitty camo.

You’ve hit the nail on the head. CarFax it much easier to separate the wheat from the chaff on maintenance records. When you can’t get records via CarFax, by go to is checking tire wear for alignment and regular rotation.

I really like the idea here, but I would really rather have factory installed MOLLE panels on seat backs and key hard surfaces. Just about anything you want can already be attached or contained in a MOLLE compatible way without the need for 3D printing or buying from Ford.

Throwing in a wild card... my girlfriend has a 2013 Fiat 500 base model manual, and it has been shockingly reliable. In 6 years and 50,000 miles of ownership it’s never needed more than oil changes, brakes and tires.

This is great news. Only 21 short years ago, the Prius was a punchline and a political statement and hybrids were synonymous with veganism and voting for Ralph Nader.

If you’ve ever peeked into a delivery van, you may have seen just how much space goes to waste to make room for a center hallway to access all the packages. While the volume is 4:1 between this in a Transit, the actual carrying capacity might be closer to 2:1-3:1.

I’ve seen some pretty cool builds for Transit Connects. I imagine if they made this in a long roof version, someone would try.

What a beautiful, functional little vehicle.

With everyone and their mother trying to get into the same day delivery game, I can see these things roving urban streets by the millions. If I were outfitting my fleet, I would want three levels of shelving in the back that pulled all the way out to have plenty of room for small and medium parcels. I’d also take out…

Alternately, it could be fixed mag limited to 10 rounds that she got with a familial transfer.

I was curious on if there was any way this thing was legal. If the magazine was fixed and capped at 10 rounds, and she had gotten it from a family member, then it could plausibly be legal.

Starred for the underrated grandma’s boy reference.

My bourgeoisie tip for getting your partner to drive stick is to go on vacation in a place where they are still pervasive and get one as a rental car. Suddenly, what was a Saturday chore becomes a fun new experience in a different country. As a bonus, it’s a rental, so who cares what happens to that clutch.

Couldn’t agree more.