If you haven't ever watched Top Gear, this is definitely one of the standout bits they did - putting that truck through absolute hell, and watching it continue to start up.
I highly recommend it, even if you don't think of yourself as a Car Guy. It's basically a comedy show that just happens to use cars.
- part 1: https://youtu.be/xnWKz7Cthkk
- part 2: https://youtu.be/xnWKz7Cthkk
- part 3: https://youtu.be/kFnVZXQD5_k
"A BBC spokeswoman said several times in an interview that Top Gear was "an entertainment programme, and should not be taken seriously."
This is the same reason the Navy has for building ships in the US even though they can be done other places cheaper.
Maybe in 1942. Modern tanks cannot be built on highly specialized production lines that build road vehicles without years-long re-tooling. M1 Abrams tanks don't even use piston engines, they have turbines.
A older, but well documented example how specialized modern automotive production has become is the Mercedes Benz 500e. In the 90s Mercedes wanted to build a more powerful, wider version of the E class. They added 56 mm to the front fenders and discovered it wouldn't fit through the production line properly. MB contracted for Porsche to handle the low-volume 500e on a different production line.
Even if you repealed CAFE today, the automakers have all built their entire business strategy around selling enormous expensive vehicles and generally despise producing lower cost options.
We are starting to see what appears to be the beginnings of a small pickup renaissance due to electrification but none have actually hit the market yet and trump has further stalled that progress by messing with EV subsidies and environmental standards.
I am sure they could consolidate the models to work in both the US and abroad, but my guess is they do enough US volume that it is not yet advantageous to do so. There's already a number of major parts that have been shared recently between the Tacoma and Hilux... e.g. the 2TR-FE engine and AC60 transmission. But usually Toyota chooses to spec the Tacoma as a more up-market vehicle, which makes sense given the US market.
I like my big truck but when it dies, if there's a small truck available that lets me plow snow and tow logs in the forest, I'll get it.
The thinking was it would make cars more efficient but instead everyone just built obscenely large vehicles that were classified as trucks instead of passenger vehicles.
The first one is a trade off against cost, but the market is already pretty good at handling that one on its own. Fuel injection and aerodynamics don't add much to the cost of a car, so pretty much everything has that now. Hybrid batteries are more expensive, but the price is coming down, and as it does the percentage of hybrid cars is going up. You don't really need a law for this; people buy it when the fuel savings exceeds the cost of the technology.
The second one is a trade off against things like cargo capacity. If you say that "cars" have to get >35 MPG at the point before hybrids are cost effective, or keep raising the number as the technology improves, it's essentially just a ban on station wagons. And then what do the people who used to buy station wagons do instead? They buy SUVs.
The entire premise is dumb. If you want more efficient vehicles then do a carbon tax which gets refunded to the population as checks, and then let people buy whatever they want, but now the break even point for hybrids and electric cars makes it worth it for more people.
But it would definitely make an impact. If you are driving a Honda fit, there is no distance at which you can’t see my kids.
In a ford f-150, the driver probably needs to be at least a dozen feet away to see my kids
When we hit another recession, we'll see smaller cars appear again.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Upacara_...
The old Hilux that was on Top Gear hasn't been made for a quarter century.
They share no parts.
Its payload is double, its fuel economy is way better. It’s way, way tougher.
I’m an Aussie living in Canada, I’ve driven many models of both extensively, family have them all.
In one high-profile case a Berlin-based VW dealership was importing the VW ID.6, which is a model exclusive to China:
https://www.shop4ev.com/en/blogs/news/verkaufsverbot-id-6-bl...
And thanks to Trump's antics Detroit is losing the Mexican and Canadian markets...
If Toyota wanted to, they could readily start manufacturing Hiluxes in Mexico and importing them into the USA. Presumably, the reason they don't do this is because Americans hate small pickup trucks. Every single truck on sale in the USDM sells better in larger footprint spec.
There's maybe 20k American who are willing to buy a new truck with the wheelbase the size of a Mustang (smallest Hilux). Even small BoF SUVs have the same problem. Take the FJ Cruiser, despite being a cult classic, it sold terribly in the USA, likely due to being too small.
Plus, they are expensive. In Australia, the cheapest non-work-spec Hilux trim is ~$55k - which is like $38kUSD. A Tacoma starts cheaper than that and is much larger.
However, current CAFE fines are capped to a whopping $0.00
The Hilux is also pretty tall and narrow, which I am guessing is very advantageous in markets where most buyers drive them on unpaved roads, and not very advantageous in countries where highway rollover tests are performed and they are primarily operated on highways with 12' wide lanes.
But no way in hell would I want to be a real accident in one. That's why they're no longer sold in the US. Amazing off-roader, cheap and extremely reliable.
But they're stuck in 1980's crash survivability while the rest of the world moved on.
Maybe it's survivor bias, the ones that are crap have been blown up by a Hellfire shot by a drone..
In the US, you can buy a five-speed 4runner which is about the simplest engine available on the market. Has all the benefits enumerated above and its trivially repairable by DIYers. However, even the 4runner has annoying garbage which can fail.
Compare the newest 70 series Land Crusier in Japan to the US Land Cruiser (Prado). Difference is a v8 with no electronics and a 4 cylinder hybrid filled with electronics and a rats nest of tubes running across the top of the engine. Try working on that... Of course its get +20mpg compared to the Japanese version. I'm pretty sure the 70 series is 4 wheel drive always whereas the prado runs in 2 wheel drive but has a 4 wheel switch (more complexity -- better gas mileage).
Anyway, intangibles such as availability of parts and lower pricing makes scavenging more economical and increases life span.
Also, stability of the platform means there's lots of expertise that has developed over the past +30 years. Same design, same repairs, same parts. Makes things easy.
NZ exports the front half of Hiluxes, 4runners, Prados etcetera to the Middle East.
Chop the front half off, put a bunch of em into a container, and ship them away.
I was yakking with a car wrecker the other day, and he said the above to explain why it was hard to find second-hand parts for a 1996 Prado.
- Cheap + reliable
- Parts for maintenance easy to come by
- Strong enough to mount an 50 cal in the back
A typical uni-body car is most than strong enough for the weight, but there is likely no place where the sheet metal is strong enough to support the bolt. You can make it work if you want, but it requires a more complex mounting system. (of course a truck has a nice open bed which has other advantages for mounting a gun - the typical car doesn't have a good place to mount the gun even if you build the mounting system).
ATVs can carry the weight, but finding a place to put the bolts will be a pain.
I mean, that blog seems to be an official Air Force publication. I don't find it very surprising that an army blog (of any nation's military) would stick to that nation's official narrative and not veer into larger geopolitical questions.
Can't a journalist or researcher find at least one person on the other side from back when this was done in ~2012 and interview them?
Sure, many will be reluctant to talk, and Afghanistan isn't exactly a stable place right now, but all it would take is a phone call to the right people...
Nuanced "it's complicated" takes don't gain traction.
Confirm the audience's biases and it's straight to the top.
I served in Iraq as an AF commander. My 2001 Tundra is still going strong ;)
The only thing I dislike about the Tundra is the gas mileage. I thought I would hate the auto trans but then I did some largish sandy-ish steps uphill and fuck me that was easy. Ah, there is another annoying thing: anti-lock brakes make sandy steep downhills with exposure much more interesting than they should be.
When I die I want to be buried in it.
God the new gigantic Tundras look awful. I think I'm seeing a lot more newish Tacomas these days, and they still look decent. They definitely look easier to park.
I am thinking of upgrading to a Toyota Land Cruiser 200 but the full cab Hilux just can’t be beat
No surprises there. A lot of ISIS' actual weaponry was stuff the US had equipped the crony Iraqi military with, and was just picked up by ISIS when the Iraqi soldiers retreated - like a weapons cache in a computer game: Move over the building and your ammo slider goes up magically.
The hilux and 79 landcruiser are run of the mill workhorses in virtually every country in the world except the US and Canada. They run rings around the Tacoma and tundra.
Tariffs and old world protectionism like the chicken tax are keeping the US automakers on life support, but they’re all doomed - they’re not even trying to compete.
Interestingly, some are assembled in Portugal for North African and Middle East markets.
We types who drive around the world do it often.
I might actually just get into the hobby of collecting Land Cruiser models, and maybe a few Japan-exclusive Toyota models.
Toyota manufacturers those trucks in the US. They could manufacture the Hilux here too, but they choose not to. So it seems like the Chicken Tax isn't the actual problem. Toyota seems to think Americans do not want the Hilux, at least not in sufficient quantities to justify bringing it to market.
America has 40% more traffic fatalities per km driven than the European Union and has less stringent emissions standards (especially for the Hilux's category, which is actually why giant SUVs became so popular over the years).
The US government doesn't even bother with these spurious pretexts anymore. They openly admit that they want to coddle local automakers to ensure that the government has a supply chain of transportation vehicles in wartime. It's quite literally socialism for the entire American auto sector.
But the American car companies are just completely unwilling to make cars that the rest of the world wants to buy.
Are you only including automakers headquartered in the US, or are you also including automakers who have a bunch of factories in the US?
Are we really worried what vendor they get their trucks from?
slaps forehead Why didn't I think of that!
"Guys! We can't Toyota's anymore. I guess terrorism is over! Pack it up and go home!"
Sheesh.
I don't think that's a simple proposition.
There are for sure gun manufacturers that would love to sell terrorists guns, can car manufacturers that would sell terrorists cars. The harder they are to obtain, the less success the terrorists will have in their objectives.
Do you really think we shouldn’t care, understand or look to shut down supply chains?