Adhesives HATE this one trick!

Jim, I know you frequent sites like this so I could ask you personally - whats the story with trail rated anyway? I feel like its such a secret and closed standard with such a variety of applications its hard to take seriously.

For me, it’s in contention for my wife’s next car as I get an employee discount. And if I get one, I do plan on taking it to Moab... to hike and ride in my friends’ RZRs, Broncos, and Wranglers ;)

This is an excellent point.  Very few people will pick a $50K family car as their rock crawling vehicle of choice much like most people will not drive their $80K super sedans on the racetrack.  A slightly more rugged version of an SUV is more than enough for those who want to do some driving on the dirt, trail, or…

Frankly, a LSD, skids plates and a bit more ground clearance is all most people need to get a bit more outdoorsy. The target market for the “overlanding look” is people who want to drive on some dirt roads and camp off the grid...... No one buying a timberline is taking it to MOAB and running rock crawling trails.

Well, you see, the owners held their thumbs over the license plates while taking pictures, so they are 100% untraceable.

1) Funny how that 12V pigtail impressed the hell out of me—stop a problem from being a problem in the first place. Sweating the details, Ford—good for you.

What a trash take. The only thing a crossover does that this doesn’t is have dry cargo space. And there’s a nice looking camper top in the images above that fixes that. Otherwise, this is an Explorer (crossover) with a bed.

In pictures this car is always gorgeous. In person it always looks like a 4/5 scale version of what it should have been.

The Chrysler Aspen SUV. Making a high-profit Chrysler SUV was good. Allowing it to use the same body shell as its non-luxury Durango sister was even acceptable, as that was standard procedure for BOF SUVs with the Detroit 3 at the time, and even with Nissan and Toyota in some instances.

The lack of creativity seems to come at a particular stage of design, specifically when moving from concept to production. They have had some very interesting concepts lately that ultimately lose all character when the realities of trying to mass produce to a specific pricepoint come into play.

I feel like Subaru at this point has the least creative designers. ALL of their cars look almost identical. Just a slightly different version of another wagon/crossover.... thing. This looks like everything else they make.

Innovative placement of the rear door handle there...

I didn’t get the part where it was mentioned that Colorado is the only state that has these problems.

It’s the state I’m from and live in and that this story is about, so that’s why I’m talking about Colorado.

Because the physical dimensions have been known to change based on who’s driving it?

I’m guessing Miss Blackstock is under 30.

This might even be dumber than “stancing”. But at least they look somewhat safe to drive around in, at least with the bed in the normal position.

Welcome to the 1990s!

This would definitely open up many possibilities of designer editions.