The Ford still seems like the value play here, and I trust the institutional knowledge of Ford building trucks. It’s hard for me to want to be the first to purchase a new manufacturer, because I’d be worried about them folding.

Honestly, I think trucks are the absolute best answer for this. I mean, people love their trucks and they are in general very boring vehicles... especially when you consider the amount of people that use trucks primarily as their commuter car.

I was going to say Super Duty trucks, because they are boringly competent at everything they do, but hold a sweet spot in my heart for being so good at just about any automotive task imaginable. But then you said:

Obviously this is a NP because it’s clean, has low miles, the market is bonkers, yadda yadda.

This iteration may have only lasted three years, but the Aviator’s still in production.

Owned one for awhile. They really are pretty great. Mine had the 5.3. Extended cab had plenty of room in the back. Got around 20 mpg highway and it was a hell of a nice cruiser - good ride, relatively quiet. Just a good quality* truck.


*except the damned tailgate latch and single DRL that is ALWAYS out.

“I don’t know how Hyundai does it. These days, if there’s a car to build or a category it hasn’t served yet, it finds a way to fill that gap. Soon you’ll be able to get a Veloster, an Elantra or even a Kona with the same high-output turbo-four; this is also the same company that will sell you a three-row SUV.”

I hope Stellantis brings over Citroens and Peugeots to bolster the somewhat depressing product lines of Dodge and Chrysler. That said I don’t know if the Peugeot 508 wagon would be in that list. Probably just boring stuff like the crossovers.

They’re not an uncommon sight in southern new england either; I’m always surprised how many I see given how few sold.

Saw one yesterday and thought how well the design has aged. Ford nailed the modern / retro balance with this one, and predictably people bought generic SUV blobs instead.

Ford Flex. It wasn’t a flop, but selling a little over 300,000 units during a run of 12 model years wasn’t enough for the blue oval. Selling a CUV alternative is tough when your customers overwhelmingly prefer a regular old CUV. The cool and funky wagon-ish vehicle lost out bigly to the generic blobs. Sad!

If we’re honest with ourselves, it never really made a lot of sense - and neither does the Gladiator. Hauling stuff is not what either the Jeep or the Bronco do best - they’re fun, convertible, SUVs with real offroad chops.  If you need to haul dirty things in a bed, either buy or rent a truck.

American muscle cars of the 60's and early 70s.

The Nissan concept is much more akin to a 4Runner than these fabric truck caps.

I agree. With today’s technology there is a better way to implement this. The car starts in a “Valet mode” enabled - can’t go over X RPM, or Y speed, you pick it; without the seatbelt being buckled. All your use cases would be fine.

What a great idea, why didn’t I think of that?

As an added benefit of that, our insurance rates would likely go down a bit

A compromise could be just limiting the speed to something appropriate for moving a car out of the way and basically nothing else. 

Counterpoint: it doesn’t

I see what you did there