> 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.
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.
As much as I like to slag on CAFE, we have been here before.
Automakers simply hate making affordable cars. MBAs extol "Number must go up! BRRRRRRR!" and you cannot do that with cheap cars.
Remember the 70s? What did the big automakers do? They made bigger and bigger cars ever shittier and jacked up the prices. Sound familiar?
And then what happened? Japan showed up and cleaned their clock. And then the protectionist laws got passed, but it didn't matter because the Japanese cars were smaller and better and used less gas. Sound familiar?
History may not repeat itself, but it sure likes to rhyme.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
Readit News
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."
Edit: it's S2E4 "Unscripted".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax
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.
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 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.
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.
Automakers simply hate making affordable cars. MBAs extol "Number must go up! BRRRRRRR!" and you cannot do that with cheap cars.
Remember the 70s? What did the big automakers do? They made bigger and bigger cars ever shittier and jacked up the prices. Sound familiar?
And then what happened? Japan showed up and cleaned their clock. And then the protectionist laws got passed, but it didn't matter because the Japanese cars were smaller and better and used less gas. Sound familiar?
History may not repeat itself, but it sure likes to rhyme.
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.
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.
“We have such sights to show you!”
Dead Comment
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.
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.
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.
All those who chant "death to Israel" happily attach "death to America" to it.
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.