The Hilux has been replaced by the Toyota Tacoma here and the closest thing we have to a Ford Bantam is the Chevrolet SSR.
Those are the full-size trucks. MrDibble was referring to small ones like the Ford Ranger.
2.3L 4 ~ 2.5L V6…
2.0L 4 ~ 2.3L4… 
We use my “normal” car for joint use. He usually goes to rehearsal straight from work, so whatever we buy will be his sole vehicle; I don’t see how we could make a justification for the two of us to own three vehicles. He doesn’t like the SSRs. So far we have just been looking at what we see on the road and checking out apparent storage capacity, visibility, etc. Murano looks OK, as does Outback. We do not like Fords (bad experience). Our second choice when we bought the Santa Fe was a RAV-4.
Isn’t Pontiac coming out with a sedan-sized Holden-made pick-up soon? IIRC, a friend was talking excitedly about it (only time I’ve ever met a dedicated Pontiac fan), but the way he described it, it sounded like a modern El Camino.
A small cargo trailer?
shudder
Yeah, it kind of sucks. Based on the G6. I’ve got photos somewhere.
I think a pair of tubas would fit just fine in my old Toyota Matrix. I always called that a ‘tall wagon’, to distinguise it from a SUV. Got 30 in winter, 35 in summer, observed.
Can any old car tow one of those? Or do you need say, a minivan, which is almost as or bigger than your standard SUV, and once attached to a fully loaded cargo trailer will then bring your MPG back down to the level of the SUV you are seeking to replace.
I suppose you could use those, but you’d have to have a bedcover to keep something like a tuba from being exposed to the elements, and then there’s the issue of theft, too, although I don’t know how much safer a tuba would be inside the cabin of an SUV as opposed to under a truck bedliner…plus you have to consider how hot of an item on the black market a tuba really is…
Right. IAN an engineer, but I don’t see how hauling even a small trailer will help fuel economy. The goal here, I think, is to get the vehicle with the largest and most efficient storage capacity without sacrificing high MPG. Is the Matrix still made?
You can tow a caravan with a 1.5L diesel Kia.
Towing a small trailer- perhaps a third of the weight of a caravan, at most- with a half dozen musical instruments with a 2 liter Toyota Corolla should be pretty easy by comparison.
A good one, pretty hot. I can name five people whose valuable horns have been stolen in the last year, and I just hear about them thirdhand.
You take the trailer off when you’re not hauling tubas around. Or when you only have one tuba that will fit in the back.
The idea behind the trailer is you have a usable car for the 90% of trips you aren’t hauling stuff - then you get the lousy gas mileage only when you need to haul stuff.
In an ideal world, we would be able to affordable rent “hauling vehicles” because you need to move the boat twice a year or move your kid into the dorm. Instead, we have a bunch of people who need big cars because three times a year they need big cars to haul stuff, four times a year it snows bad enough that a big SUV will handle it (but not bad enough that you’d have to be an idiot to go out at all), and the rest of the year, they drop two kids off at daycare and commute in a behemoth to work. It was expensive to own THREE cars, impractical to rent an SUV when you needed it, and gas was cheap.
The plus side of the bottom dropping out of the used SUV market is its becoming affordable to own one used and insure it for three times a year you NEED it. However, only those people who are in the market for one now get to take advantage of it.
I think for rural folks and people who really do need access to large cars, the days of having something fuel efficient in addition to the vehicle that can take you down the side of the mountain in March is here.
How YOU doin’?
Doesn’t work for me yet. I could save perhaps $600 a year in fuel. Considering the upfront cost of the car, maint. and insurance, it’s not even close.
From here.
That Dodge Magnum station wagon is hilariously high-powered! 
For those who feel they need to lay down some rubber on the way to soccer practice!
(Not exactly a gas sipper, though.)