> It is also a very robust vehicle capable of withstanding elemental and physical extremities, as shown on the British TV show “Top Gear.”[6]
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.
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.
While I don't think it would prevent our troops from having foreign-produced trucks in theater, we can't affordably procure such trucks thanks to the Chicken Tax. I would also guess that giving a DoD contract to Toyota for a truck that may not be registrable in the US would also face institutional resistance.
The military has an incentive to ensure there are plenty of Americans who know how to design and manufacture things. A truck and a tank have a lot in common - if war breaks out we want the ability to take people of of trucks and get them making things the military needs.
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.
> This is the same reason the Navy has for building ships in the US even though they can be done other places cheaper.
You'd think the biggest war machine on the planet would benefit from economies of scale by now. If they want to stay sharp they could build commercial ships between the ocassional war ship.
If you don't believe in the power and corruption of the military procurement industry and the military itself, then your comment is so unrealistic as to be deluded.
If you do believe in it, then it's simply irrelevant. Given the other reasons that the US military is spent with profligacy on US manufactured goods, maintaining 'truck know-how' does not register. If the know how consideration did not exist the money would still be spent in exactly the same way.
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 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.
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.
The current Hilux is extremely close in size to the US Tacoma... It has also grown over the years. Although if you look at the footprint size (e.g. what CAFE measures), the Tacoma has the wheels a little more advantageously placed.
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.
They are massive because of the cafe standards. There's plenty enough of a market for smaller trucks, even the Ford Maverick which is closer to a car with a bed sold out immediately.
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.
Also, because of CAFE standards, the US can't even attempt to create its own competing light trucks as everything needs to be fucking massive to maintain the emission exemptions.
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.
There are two ways to improve fuel economy. The first is technology (fuel injection, aerodynamics, hybrids, etc.). The second is to make the vehicle smaller.
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.
I wish it was easy and simple to buy the Hilux in America. Many amazing foreign vehicles have been banned or heavily taxed by the Federal Government to prevent competition.
Imagine how much nicer driving around in the suburbs would be if the majority of vehicles were town cars like Honda Fits, mini-mini-vans like Honda Freed, pre-2003 Tacomas, and kei trucks/vans instead of the usual mix of unreasonably tall and boxy crossovers/SUVs and brodozer trucks.
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.
I think you probably know this because you used the US name for the car (internationally known as the Jazz), but for those who don’t, Honda discontinued the Fit in the US market due to poor sales. For every internet comment bemoaning the lack of these vehicles there’s the actual fact of revealed consumer preference in the US market.
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 cars appear again.
This is a roundabout way of saying Americans are willing to spend more money on bigger car because they like them better.
Aside from urban cores with limited parking and lots of narrow streets, it’s obvious that “bigger” means more utility regardless of marketing. You can fit more people and more stuff more comfortably (apparently people really prefer the spacious people room even above room for stuff). People are not being brainwashed by ads.
They are both offered in a variety of configurations, and some parts are sometimes shared between the two. e.g. the 2TR-FE engine and AC60 transmission. Parts sharing is routine in the industry. The vast majority of parts on most vehicles are shared with other vehicles.
But yes, the Hilux is built to be a work truck, the Tacoma is built as a passenger vehicle that can do truck things.
Even vehicles that are largely the same as those we get here are banned from being brought in. All because Mercedes didn't like being undercut by gray market imports and lobbied the government.
The Hilux isn't "banned" from the USA. Toyota can federalize it and sell it here at any time. Toyota doesn't bring it here because we have the Tacoma - a truck designed to be more inline with American consumer tastes.
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.
CAFE doesn't prevent them from producing or selling it here, plenty of automakers just pay CAFE fines. The Tacoma and Hilux are very similar in overall size, but the Tacoma does have the wheels pushed slightly closer to the corners, likely for this reason.
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.
I loved my 1987 Toyota 4x4 pickup with all its mods. My wife used to say that I'd get rid of her before I got rid of it (wife's still here; I sold the truck long ago).
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.
They're selling side by sides today in the <3500 dry wt. category which can be road registered. If used primarily for agriculture, they're even tax exempt from registration in some states. The 80's toyota pickup is better than a side by side and weighs less than 3500, arguably safer, and offers better utility for agriculture. There are plenty of Toyota manufacturing facilities in the US, which would avoid the chicken tax on import. It's not impossible or unreasonable for light weight toyota turbo diesels with hydraulic systems, an aluminum frame, and manual locking hubs to materialize.
That's the dirty secret, is that a lot of the side-by-sides kind of suck in relation to an old Tacoma, S10, Mahindra Roxor or a Kei truck, and cost an arm and a leg. It's amazing to me that Polaris sells as many as they do, given what they cost and their capabilities.
Seems like the question is never answered. There's a lot of how the trucks get there, but not why they're better. (I skimmed it, the writing has too much emotional bait of "Look how evil they are! Don't forget, we're the good guys!").
Maybe it's survivor bias, the ones that are crap have been blown up by a Hellfire shot by a drone..
It’s the same story as the Casio F-91W as well as the AK-47. Terrorists (or just any armed paramilitary group) who live in the back country far from common supply lines have a great need for standardized, rugged, reliable, and repairable technology. By living that life, they’re basically forced to think about these issues as a matter of survival.
I can tell you precisely why foreign Toyotas (especially certain models) are more reliable that whats typically sold in the US. No electronics and parts which operate based on physics (pressure, gravity, etc). Both of these decisions lend themselves to a simple engine compartment and repairability.
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.
The V8 in the 70 series landcruiser uses computer controlled electronic injection. It also has other electronic / electro-mechanical systems like ABS and airbags.
- Cheap + reliable
- Parts for maintenance easy to come by
- Strong enough to mount an 50 cal in the back
You might have a mix of government owned vehicles, and ones rented from the local economy. You might be driving Hiluxes to work, and observing ISIS or partner forces using the same model as fighting vehicles.
Is the mounting problem even real? I’ve shot a 50 cal rifle unmounted and I’d venture to say it could be mounted to anything. It’s mainly for ergonomic / accuracy / rapid fire stability and doesn’t need significant structural support. You could probably mount it to an ATV if you wanted to.
Sort of. A truck has a frame that you can drill a hole in and bolt the thing to. Simple and easy.
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.
> the writing has too much emotional bait of "Look how evil they are! Don't forget, we're the good guys!"
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.
But talking about the narrative can be written in a neutral way ("we're fighting terrorists"), and there's trying to convince readers (and maybe themselves) that they are as noble as the crusaders. Sad if you don't understand the difference.
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...
Why do websites constantly insist on having small gray on white background text, stretching 160+ characters per line? Practically impossible to read on desktop. I wish people would think about default readability. Even Microsoft Edge’s reading mode barely made a difference.
So is mine (2001TRD bought new). Searched all over AZ looking for manual everything and I got it, except for the trans. It replaced an fj60 Landcruiser. Beautiful machine I worked on a lot (5spd trans, lift, exhaust, gas tank) but it needed more power. The FJ-60 replaced an absolutely bottom basic 4cyl 4wd 5spd manual Toy "Pickup", better than a jeep 'cause you could carry shit off road, that the child outgrew sitting in the middle behind the stick.
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.
One of the books that influenced my thinking the most was The Accidental Guerilla by David Kilcullen where he posits that economic disadvantage drove a lot of people to insurgency. This article supports that. Worth a read!
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.
> ISIS may have acquired Toyota Hilux vehicles thanks to the perpetual cycle of U.S. involvement in Foreign Military Sales with the Middle East
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.
What’s better than Hilux is the Land Cruiser 70 or 75 series, more reliable and bigger payload. That being said, you can never go wrong with Toyota, reliable yet simple, if you open the Hilux engine hood you can literally see your feet through the engine area because only few components are in there, compare this to say a german car, and you need a manual on just where to find the engine oil stick.
Because the chicken tax keeps out great vehicles so the US automakers don’t have to compete.
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.
Land cruisers are almost collectors items now in the Middle East. Transcends across wealth and status. Doesn't matter if it's a middle class office worker with a large family, a soccer mom living in the Palm or a filthy rich oil sheikh with an arsenal of sports cars stored away in his garage - they all have Land Cruisers (or the Prado).
I might actually just get into the hobby of collecting Land Cruiser models, and maybe a few Japan-exclusive Toyota models.
Explain why, if they are so much better than the Taco and Tundra, we can get the latter here in the US without paying the Chicken Tax?
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.
Been lusting after a 76 cruiser since I got my license. Settled for a first gen taco in the early aughts. It's been from Cabo to Dawson and back again twice and is still only half way through it's useful life..
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.
I, too, am waiting to execute my master plan to import a 70 series Land Cruiser. Late 90s/early 00s model. It's almost time. Last car I'll ever need to buy.
The C8 corvette is car of the year for like 5+ years running by every major automotive publication. When GM/Chevy tries, they beat everyone else. Too bad bean counters ruin everything except their halo cars.
> Are we really worried what vendor they get their trucks from?
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?
> It is also a very robust vehicle capable of withstanding elemental and physical extremities, as shown on the British TV show “Top Gear.”[6]
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.
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
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.
IIRC, they have been caught pre-scripting scenes. The most famous incident being the Tesla Roadster debacle - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Gear_controversies#Tesla_R...
"A BBC spokeswoman said several times in an interview that Top Gear was "an entertainment programme, and should not be taken seriously."
Also the Hilux in that video hasn't been made this millennia, so the "shiny new ones" the article references likely isn't those.
https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Gear%3A_Polar_Special Top Gear drives a heavily modified Toyota Hilux to the North Pole.
While I don't think it would prevent our troops from having foreign-produced trucks in theater, we can't affordably procure such trucks thanks to the Chicken Tax. I would also guess that giving a DoD contract to Toyota for a truck that may not be registrable in the US would also face institutional resistance.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax
The military has an incentive to ensure there are plenty of Americans who know how to design and manufacture things. A truck and a tank have a lot in common - if war breaks out we want the ability to take people of of trucks and get them making things the military needs.
This is the same reason the Navy has for building ships in the US even though they can be done other places cheaper.
> A truck and a tank have a lot in common
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.
> This is the same reason the Navy has for building ships in the US even though they can be done other places cheaper.
You'd think the biggest war machine on the planet would benefit from economies of scale by now. If they want to stay sharp they could build commercial ships between the ocassional war ship.
If you don't believe in the power and corruption of the military procurement industry and the military itself, then your comment is so unrealistic as to be deluded.
If you do believe in it, then it's simply irrelevant. Given the other reasons that the US military is spent with profligacy on US manufactured goods, maintaining 'truck know-how' does not register. If the know how consideration did not exist the money would still be spent in exactly the same way.
Toyota has factories in the US where they produce pickups. They could build the Hilux here if they thought it would do well in the market.
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 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.
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.
The current Hilux is extremely close in size to the US Tacoma... It has also grown over the years. Although if you look at the footprint size (e.g. what CAFE measures), the Tacoma has the wheels a little more advantageously placed.
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.
They are massive because of the cafe standards. There's plenty enough of a market for smaller trucks, even the Ford Maverick which is closer to a car with a bed sold out immediately.
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.
25% tariff isn't a roadblock for military spending.
Regarding Western military procurement,
“We have such sights to show you!”
Also, because of CAFE standards, the US can't even attempt to create its own competing light trucks as everything needs to be fucking massive to maintain the emission exemptions.
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.
There are two ways to improve fuel economy. The first is technology (fuel injection, aerodynamics, hybrids, etc.). The second is to make the vehicle smaller.
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.
CAFE stopped being enforced in 2022 and don't apply going forward.
I wish it was easy and simple to buy the Hilux in America. Many amazing foreign vehicles have been banned or heavily taxed by the Federal Government to prevent competition.
Imagine how much nicer driving around in the suburbs would be if the majority of vehicles were town cars like Honda Fits, mini-mini-vans like Honda Freed, pre-2003 Tacomas, and kei trucks/vans instead of the usual mix of unreasonably tall and boxy crossovers/SUVs and brodozer trucks.
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 think you probably know this because you used the US name for the car (internationally known as the Jazz), but for those who don’t, Honda discontinued the Fit in the US market due to poor sales. For every internet comment bemoaning the lack of these vehicles there’s the actual fact of revealed consumer preference in the US market.
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 cars appear again.
This is a roundabout way of saying Americans are willing to spend more money on bigger car because they like them better.
Aside from urban cores with limited parking and lots of narrow streets, it’s obvious that “bigger” means more utility regardless of marketing. You can fit more people and more stuff more comfortably (apparently people really prefer the spacious people room even above room for stuff). People are not being brainwashed by ads.
The current Hilux really isn't much different than a Tacoma to call it "amazing"
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.
It is vastly different. Different engine, gearbox, axles, brakes.
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.
They are both offered in a variety of configurations, and some parts are sometimes shared between the two. e.g. the 2TR-FE engine and AC60 transmission. Parts sharing is routine in the industry. The vast majority of parts on most vehicles are shared with other vehicles.
But yes, the Hilux is built to be a work truck, the Tacoma is built as a passenger vehicle that can do truck things.
Even vehicles that are largely the same as those we get here are banned from being brought in. All because Mercedes didn't like being undercut by gray market imports and lobbied the government.
There's a similar thing currently going on in some parts of Europe, but the imported cars are for the Chinese market.
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...
America will become like East Germany and the Trabant.
And thanks to Trump's antics Detroit is losing the Mexican and Canadian markets...
The Hilux isn't "banned" from the USA. Toyota can federalize it and sell it here at any time. Toyota doesn't bring it here because we have the Tacoma - a truck designed to be more inline with American consumer tastes.
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.
They can't produce them here because of CAFE.
CAFE doesn't prevent them from producing or selling it here, plenty of automakers just pay CAFE fines. The Tacoma and Hilux are very similar in overall size, but the Tacoma does have the wheels pushed slightly closer to the corners, likely for this reason.
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.
Toyota must not think it is that amazing, else they would use their pickup factory in Texas to make Hilux's to sell here.
I loved my 1987 Toyota 4x4 pickup with all its mods. My wife used to say that I'd get rid of her before I got rid of it (wife's still here; I sold the truck long ago).
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.
They're selling side by sides today in the <3500 dry wt. category which can be road registered. If used primarily for agriculture, they're even tax exempt from registration in some states. The 80's toyota pickup is better than a side by side and weighs less than 3500, arguably safer, and offers better utility for agriculture. There are plenty of Toyota manufacturing facilities in the US, which would avoid the chicken tax on import. It's not impossible or unreasonable for light weight toyota turbo diesels with hydraulic systems, an aluminum frame, and manual locking hubs to materialize.
That's the dirty secret, is that a lot of the side-by-sides kind of suck in relation to an old Tacoma, S10, Mahindra Roxor or a Kei truck, and cost an arm and a leg. It's amazing to me that Polaris sells as many as they do, given what they cost and their capabilities.
Just looked up their figures -- I would have never guessed they sell 600k+ units/yr of side-by-sides given what they charge for them
Seems like the question is never answered. There's a lot of how the trucks get there, but not why they're better. (I skimmed it, the writing has too much emotional bait of "Look how evil they are! Don't forget, we're the good guys!").
Maybe it's survivor bias, the ones that are crap have been blown up by a Hellfire shot by a drone..
It’s the same story as the Casio F-91W as well as the AK-47. Terrorists (or just any armed paramilitary group) who live in the back country far from common supply lines have a great need for standardized, rugged, reliable, and repairable technology. By living that life, they’re basically forced to think about these issues as a matter of survival.
Well I think the F-91 is durable, it’s probably not repaired as much as discarded as it is cheap. Disposable is likely the advantage there.
I can tell you precisely why foreign Toyotas (especially certain models) are more reliable that whats typically sold in the US. No electronics and parts which operate based on physics (pressure, gravity, etc). Both of these decisions lend themselves to a simple engine compartment and repairability.
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.
> makes scavenging more economical and increases life span
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.
The V8 in the 70 series landcruiser uses computer controlled electronic injection. It also has other electronic / electro-mechanical systems like ABS and airbags.
Fair enough!
Is the mounting problem even real? I’ve shot a 50 cal rifle unmounted and I’d venture to say it could be mounted to anything. It’s mainly for ergonomic / accuracy / rapid fire stability and doesn’t need significant structural support. You could probably mount it to an ATV if you wanted to.
Sort of. A truck has a frame that you can drill a hole in and bolt the thing to. Simple and easy.
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.
Also, the guy can ride around standing in the back operating the gun; I can't see how that would work in a car.
> the writing has too much emotional bait of "Look how evil they are! Don't forget, we're the good guys!"
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.
But talking about the narrative can be written in a neutral way ("we're fighting terrorists"), and there's trying to convince readers (and maybe themselves) that they are as noble as the crusaders. Sad if you don't understand the difference.
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
Stories like this always seem one-sided.
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...
>Stories like this always seem one-sided.
Nuanced "it's complicated" takes don't gain traction.
Confirm the audience's biases and it's straight to the top.
Why do websites constantly insist on having small gray on white background text, stretching 160+ characters per line? Practically impossible to read on desktop. I wish people would think about default readability. Even Microsoft Edge’s reading mode barely made a difference.
They sometimes get American trucks, too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Mark-1_Plumbing_truck_inc...
Reminds me of a back burner project I have. "The Technical In War".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_War
Big reveal: they're not but bringing out a feeling of superiority in your enemy inside a warzone makes them easier targets
Glad to see my alma mater represented here doing good research.
I served in Iraq as an AF commander. My 2001 Tundra is still going strong ;)
So is mine (2001TRD bought new). Searched all over AZ looking for manual everything and I got it, except for the trans. It replaced an fj60 Landcruiser. Beautiful machine I worked on a lot (5spd trans, lift, exhaust, gas tank) but it needed more power. The FJ-60 replaced an absolutely bottom basic 4cyl 4wd 5spd manual Toy "Pickup", better than a jeep 'cause you could carry shit off road, that the child outgrew sitting in the middle behind the stick.
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.
Hell Yeah V8 TRD rep
I am thinking of upgrading to a Toyota Land Cruiser 200 but the full cab Hilux just can’t be beat
One of the books that influenced my thinking the most was The Accidental Guerilla by David Kilcullen where he posits that economic disadvantage drove a lot of people to insurgency. This article supports that. Worth a read!
Yes, humans do compete for resources.
Not the same thing.
Go on?
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.
> ISIS may have acquired Toyota Hilux vehicles thanks to the perpetual cycle of U.S. involvement in Foreign Military Sales with the Middle East
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.
What’s better than Hilux is the Land Cruiser 70 or 75 series, more reliable and bigger payload. That being said, you can never go wrong with Toyota, reliable yet simple, if you open the Hilux engine hood you can literally see your feet through the engine area because only few components are in there, compare this to say a german car, and you need a manual on just where to find the engine oil stick.
Because the chicken tax keeps out great vehicles so the US automakers don’t have to compete.
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.
AFAIK, the classic Toyota Land Cruiser (J70) has not been sold in EU for more than a decade since it doesn't comply with emission regulations.
Interestingly, some are assembled in Portugal for North African and Middle East markets.
The 70 series is still very easy to buy and register in many EU countries. The new 2.8 diesel is euro 6
We types who drive around the world do it often.
Land cruisers are almost collectors items now in the Middle East. Transcends across wealth and status. Doesn't matter if it's a middle class office worker with a large family, a soccer mom living in the Palm or a filthy rich oil sheikh with an arsenal of sports cars stored away in his garage - they all have Land Cruisers (or the Prado).
I might actually just get into the hobby of collecting Land Cruiser models, and maybe a few Japan-exclusive Toyota models.
Explain why, if they are so much better than the Taco and Tundra, we can get the latter here in the US without paying the Chicken Tax?
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.
Been lusting after a 76 cruiser since I got my license. Settled for a first gen taco in the early aughts. It's been from Cabo to Dawson and back again twice and is still only half way through it's useful life..
Fingers crossed Carney changes for us Canadians, I was in Mexico for a month and rented a BYD Seal, fantastic car.
The "protectionism" you cite is due to crash regulation and emissions standards.
This is unadulterated cope.
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.
This in itself would not be so bad. After all Korea and Japan supported their auto industry.
But the American car companies are just completely unwilling to make cars that the rest of the world wants to buy.
> coddle local automakers
Are you only including automakers headquartered in the US, or are you also including automakers who have a bunch of factories in the US?
Irrelevant - they still don't meet our standards.
I wish we could get the Hilux here. Had to settle for a Tacoma instead.
I, too, am waiting to execute my master plan to import a 70 series Land Cruiser. Late 90s/early 00s model. It's almost time. Last car I'll ever need to buy.
In case you forgot after you read the article: the article talks about the US providing Hilux trucks to allies in the Middle East.
The C8 corvette is car of the year for like 5+ years running by every major automotive publication. When GM/Chevy tries, they beat everyone else. Too bad bean counters ruin everything except their halo cars.
Why not deal with the cause of the terrorism?
Are we really worried what vendor they get their trucks from?
> Why not deal with the cause of the terrorism?
slaps forehead Why didn't I think of that!
What's the alternative. In a terrorist camp somewhere:
"Guys! We can't Toyota's anymore. I guess terrorism is over! Pack it up and go home!"
Sheesh.
> Why not deal with the cause of the terrorism?
I don't think that's a simple proposition.
Some terrorism is because we murdered the terrorist's family, and we could just stop murdering families. I don't think this one is, though.
No, these guys we seem to have funded and supported. We even helped a former AQ leader become the president of Syria.
> Are we really worried what vendor they get their trucks from?
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?