I just wanted to share that I just received an email from Davis Smith (i.e. Cotopaxi’s CEO, from this story). He explained a lot of the things that I was confused about and I wanted to make sure his perspective got heard. The following is shared with his permission:

I live in Phoenix, and I say the cooler the better. The crotch vent is definitely one of the top 5 things I miss about my old Sequoia. I’ve never once in my life thought my junk was too cold in the car.

Which really cramps his style when he goes to the ATM machine.

The Nissan Maxima is near and dear to my heart. Like you Freddy, this car (the second generation) played a big part in my automotive formative years. My “car crew” in high school (...hah, yeah...) had an Infiniti I30 inherited from somebody’s father and we all worshiped it like a shrine to the “big boy cars” we read…

For the average suburban dad with outdoorsy hobbies (yep, I’m one of those), this is plenty of capability. This will go just about anywhere that you’d take a non-TRD off-r0ad or equivalent Tacoma 4x4 (I have one of those - with the long wheel base due to 6ft bed and crew cab, and the lack of locking diff - it’s not a…

That's the I-VTM4 kicking in, yo!

AND. PARK. IN. NON-EXISTENT. AUSTIN. PARKING. SPOTS. ALSO. DRINK. AND. DRIVE.

Great place to keep a baby, especially with the drain plug.

(punches wall, sobs)

Man, how baller would you have been picking up the lady from her dormicile at half past 5 to take her to the ballroom for a night’s dancing and hand holding. No walking, no smelly horses, just you and your steam engine on wheels.

They need to do that with a full stocked ambulance and an unrestrained medic dummy and compare it to a restrained medic dummy. Also another one with a 34lbs INO NICU isolette. It’s the heavy stuff that’s gonna do you in while your in the patient compartment. A couple hits upside the head with an EKG monitor and your…

[car is in the drainage ditch]

Buying a Honda Insight is still the worst decision he’s ever made, a problem somehow solved by the second worst decision he’s ever made.