121–130 of 135 posts
Maybe stop US should stop funding ISIS, Al Queda in Syria, mujahideen in Afghanistan…
Don't be silly. Can't have stability in Israel's adversaries
All those who chant "death to Israel" happily attach "death to America" to it.
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I don’t doubt how tough the Hilux can be, but Top Gear tended to stage a lot of things. Like they intentionally killed Hammond’s Land Cruiser at the end of the Bolivia special. Plus, they had some pretty damn good mechanics, while Clarkson pretended to fix his cars with a hammer in front of the camera.
Also the Hilux in that video hasn't been made this millennia, so the "shiny new ones" the article references likely isn't those.
They are sold by Toyota Gibraltar Stockholdings, look them up on YouTube.
Because ISIS was a rebranded Al Quaeda which emerged from the Mujahideen terrorist group which was funded by the US through Operation Cyclone headed by the Polish Jesuit Zbigniew Brzezinski. They've always had funding from the Jesuits / US war industry. It's no surprise they have access to these vehicles if one understands that all modern wars are orchestrated.
Not just modern wars. Hell the American Revolution was funded and supplied by France and the Netherlands- the colonies at that time did not have the industrial capability to outfit an army. Every conflict in the history of man has people operating in the shadows.
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For folks who have never seen it, these are the referenced Top Gear segments: - part 1: https://youtu.be/xnWKz7Cthkk - part 2: https://youtu.be/xnWKz7Cthkk - part 3: https://youtu.be/kFnVZXQD5_k
Second link is wrong (links to part 1 again). Corrected: https://youtu.be/xTPnIpjodA8
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Well I don't think it would be that much different, truthfully. The problem of the suburbs is a matter of layout and zoning, not so much the vehicles used. If you fix the layout and zoning it'll naturally reduce vehicle size.
Would better zoning have a bigger impact? Of course. 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
I guess what I meant to say was, to actually solve this problem we also need structural changes so that even driving one of these vehicles in our cities is a bit uncomfortable and so that it's less common precisely because of the reason you specified and many more.
As we build and design better cities, people will naturally not want to buy such vehicles except if they have actual needs for them. I mean, you should be able to buy whatever you want. If you want a giant truck by all means go for it, but society shouldn't cater to edge cases, especially when they cause hazards like the one you described.
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Also the Hilux in that video hasn't been made this millennia, so the "shiny new ones" the article references likely isn't those.
They are in fact the same design. They are not available in regions with robust emissions laws, but they are still manufactured, sold and widely used in Africa and the Middle East. They are sold by Toyota Gibraltar Stockholdings, look them up on YouTube.
TGS is merely a distributor and outfitter of Toyota vehicles for the UN, who famously uses the 70 Series Land Cruiser. But, TGS manufactures zero vehicles -- they simply outfit and work on vehicles that Toyota currently makes.
TGS does offer the Hilux as well, but only the current 8th gen model: https://www.toyota-gib.com/en/models/hilux.html
The Hilux in the above Top Gear video is a 4th generation model, which started production in 1983, and was last manufactured in 1997 when the final plant in South Africa stopped manufacturing it.
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That's the thing though, they can't, at least until the very recent advent of EVs. We used to have similar vehicles (the old 80s/90s ford ranger, tacoma, etc) but they were regulated out of existence by CAFE standards. 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 start…
In 1993 I paid a shade under $10k for a new Chevy S10 where the only options were AC (not actually optional in Texas) and CD player in the radio. It was manual transmission, V6. Indexed to inflation that would be, what, about $24k today if regs allowed them to be built? If it existed they would fill every rural high school parking lot in the south. Allow them to exist and someone will build them.
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Much of consumer preference doesn't originate from the consumers' own minds, though. It's shaped largely by marketing, and in the US car companies have been pushing bigger, boxier, more plush, and more expensive with its ad spend and incentives for decades now. It's way easier to find a dealership offering 0%-2% financing on some aircraft carrier of a vehicle than it is on a small car.
Americans' appetite for small cars seems to be linked pretty closely to the inflation-adjusted price of gasoline. Automakers always want to push more premium vehicles, because they make their margins selling to people with more money to buy more features, more space, more performance. The low end of the market is lower margin and you have to make up for it with volume. When we hit another recession, we'll see smaller…
I drive a car and will never buy a truck or SUV because it allows me spend the least amount on fuel. It also allows me to see in front of the vehicle while making it easier to maneuver in tight spots.
American car culture is built on self projection not about functionality.
Great example of this are people who say they bought a truck so the can take home large items from a hardware store. Yet they only will do this less than ten times a year ... making renting a truck and owning a car more economical in the long run.
Evolution of the tuck bed being 60% and cap being 40% in the 1950s to cab being 60% and bed being 60% shows it is not even about functionality of a truck being a truck.
If I have to haul something, I will rent and not waste my time and money maintaining a large vehicle.