Can we just go ahead and skip to the part where we find out that this is yet another dumb internet hoax designed to stir up the usual slacktivist righteous indignation instead of waiting a week? I'd rather not have to read this story 37 times on facebook, it wasn't well done the first time.

It's basically a badge engineered Fiat Panda 4x4, which, if you've read Jalopnik for any length of time, you know that "not available in this market" equals "touched by the hand of god".

Jalopnik is primarily run by 16 year old girls? Would explain the excitement I guess.

It's a diesel. Calling its driving dynamics awful would be pretty redundant.

This is a car enthusiast website, right? You're angry that VW greenlit and is selling the hardcore, 35k fun car, but having second thoughts about bringing the boring, godawful diesel over?

Which is nice and all, but even in the "Mid size" market which currently consists of a whopping 2 players, the Tacoma and said Frontier, it's a dud. The Taco sells around ~160k trucks a year. Triple the Frontier.

It's an inch taller than the golf, and 6 inches shorter. It's not a large car.

It's smaller than a VW golf. I'm not sure what your definition of "huge" is.

It's a dumb article. It's the top seller because there's no standard Cooper/Cooper S models to sell at the moment.

Don't worry, they've only offered it for..7 years.

So, I make a statement that "they're not really buying a lot of them, only around ~50k a year", and you post an article that shows they sell..about 50k a year? The article itself quotes Nissan as saying the majority of the sales are stripper 4 cyl trucks sold as fleet sales and rentals. That's not really a good thing.

I wouldn't really say they "snap them up". Nissan sells about 50k frontiers a year, and Toyota sells around 150k Tacomas. Combine those two together and they'd be fighting neck and neck with the GMC sierra for 4th place in overall sales. For the last 5-6 years of its life, the Chevy Colorado was selling 25-30k trucks…

Bring it over into the fleet/rental market, don't let it exceed $13-14k, and you might have something. 97 hp and 95 ft/lbs in a truck is a pretty tough sell in the US, and if they try to price this thing around 17-18, they might as well leave it on the boat. As is, it might make a nice NAPA part hauler truck or…

Seems kinda remiss to be on deadspin and not post this.

Eastern Europe/Ex Soviet-bloc states. Doesn't matter. They might as well be living in mud huts over there.

Welcome to Jalopnik dude. When you realize that most of the writers for this site don't even own a car, it makes a lot more sense.

Bravo.

Bbb..bb.bbut dude, a British Comedy TV show told me differently!

Because its torque figures are equally unimpressive. A whopping 260 ft/lbs. That's less than the gas V6 in the Tacoma.

A $90k aftermarket conversion that makes 170 hp is your example?