Trucks! Trucks! Dude! Trucks!

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

The Mercedes pickup of your pampered redneck dreams

Trucks! Trucks! Dude! Trucks!

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist | 12:30PM PDT - Friday, March 27, 2015


Could it work? Sure as hell a lot better looking (and will certainly drive better, and be better built) than anything made by Ford, Chevy or Dodge.

THERE WAS a brief blip there, when gas prices were skyrocketing and American automakers were tanking due to their unutterable blandness, bloat, arrogance and shaky build quality — not to mention the fact that the Bush years decimated the U.S. economy — that efficient, well-designed small foreign cars were the best selling vehicles in America.

Didn’t last long. Obama resurrected the economy and forced the US auto industry to slap itself awake, Big Oil went back to its gluttonous ways and Americans, soothed once again into our default state of false complacency, have gone back to buying our most favoritest mode of transport, ever.

Nope, not big SUVs. It’s pickup trucks, of course — and by a huge margin, too. Get this: Ford’s bro-tastic F-150 outsells both the Honda Accord and Toyota Camry, the No.1 and No.2 best-selling cars, respectively, by nearly a 2-to-1 margin. Chevy’s Silverado and Dodge’s RAM are close behind. For U.S. automakers, trucks are a goldmine.


This is the best selling vehicle in America. For many years. Sure, it's just ridiculously ugly. Sure, it drives like a beast.
But trucks have never been about design or road feel — not yet, anyway.


Mercedes makes all sorts of absurd, obscenely awesome niche trucks for drug kingpins and oil magnates you will never see
on the road. Like this AMG 6x6 beast. Yours for $500,000, and up.


The Bentley SUV. Coming 2016. “The most expensive SUV on earth”, they don't mind telling you.


Lambo's URUS concept, from 2012. Still waiting for the production green-light from Audi, apparently. But still.

And they’ve owned the U.S. market for just about ever, too. Thing is, pickups have always had a decidedly down-market image. Utilitarian, boring, often cheesily macho, working class, hugely inefficient, terrible driving dynamics. They’re beasts. Translation: No hipster dad, wealthy VC exec or overpaid tech bro is eager to give up his Audi Q5 or BMX X5 to pilot a ginormous, road-numb, 12MPG Silverado to the office.

That might be about to change. Reports are swirling that Mercedes, no stranger to making totally badass, ridiculously expensive, ultra niche-market trucks for the Arab sheik/creepy paramilitary/drug-kingpin set, is planning to introduce its first consumer-grade pickup by decade’s end.


Hyundai's 2015 Santa Cruz pickup concept. Just weird enough to attract Gen Z?


Isn't it adorable? It's GMC's Granite concept, from 2011. Not exactly luxury,
but at least US truck makers are exploring some funky ideas.
Do they have the nerve to produce them? Doubtful.

And why the hell not? Germany’s big three automakers are fast coming around to the idea that no one cares about their precious images anymore. At least, not like we used to. We’re in a world where Apple is making a $10,000 gold watch. Ferrari hawks tacky landfill crap in shopping malls. 22-year-old tech bros are making $150K starting salaries and still can’t dress themselves. And the Germans are already swarming into the small SUV market (BMW X1, Audi Q3, Merc GLA), a category they once shunned. Hell, even brands like Bentley, Maserati, and Lamborghini are expected to release their own freakishly expensive SUVs in a couple years.

Seems like a sure bet that pickups, one of the last vestiges of blue-collar Americana, are ripe to go upscale. Like coffee, like burgers, like mac n’ cheese, like anything once cheap and working class that’s been “discovered” by artisan makers and upscale brands, pickups seem ready for a posh makeover. After all, it’s not just rednecks and working-class folk who willingly buy into America’s illusion of ruggedness, utility, toughness.


…But someone like Hyundai just might.


Jaguar pickup truck! You wish. (Rendering by X-Tomi Design — facebook.com/xtomidesign).

Imagine BMW whipping up a stylish mid-sized pickup with great handling, refinement, lots of silly 'luxe touches like, say, a built-in (BMW-branded) tent, matching bikes, a pop-up digital movie screen. Imagine Tesla coming out with an all-electric urban pickup whose bed doubles as a solar recharger for its own batteries and the whole thing is a mobile Wifi hub. Why not? Pickup trucks! Not just for Florida/Georgia Line fans anymore. Watch for it.

NOTE: According to Mercedes, that pickup is only slated for Latin America, South Africa, Australia and Europe. We’re not getting it. Which is, of course, entirely stupid. Watch for them to snap out of it by 2020.


The sort of insane Mercedes Unimog. A real thing. Because OMFG what?

• Email: Mark Morford

• Mark Morford on Twitter and Facebook.

http://blog.sfgate.com/morford/2015/03/27/mercedes-pickup-truck

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

Just the thing for American men who have a small penis.

(that would mean reality would also qualify)

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

from Fairfax NZ....

Why Kiwis love utes so much

Utes may be thirsty and heavy but we love them and
that has a lot to do with the failings of modern SUVs.

By DAVID LINKLATER | 12:16PM - Thursday, January 07, 2016


Kiwis like utes like the Ford Ranger because they can do this. Even if many of us don't actually do this.

THE Ford Ranger ute was the best-selling vehicle of any type in New Zealand for 2015. Of the top-five “cars” overall, three were pickup trucks: joining Ranger were the Toyota Hilux and Holden Colorado.

This is outwardly a strange thing when we hear so much about about buyer trends towards downsizing and environmental awareness. Because utes are heavy beasts, thirsty despite their diesel engines (see the previous point), relatively unwieldy on the road (compared with a conventional car at least) and often laden with rugged off-road hardware that you really don't need for everyday driving.

Putting aside the utes that are actually used as light-commercial workhorses, it's undeniable that a large number of these load-luggers are serving as family and lifestyle vehicles. Having a double-cab four-door body means a less useful tray, but this style accounts for 90 per cent of ute sales in NZ. City-friendly automatic transmissions have grown in popularity over the past five years and now account for the majority of sales.

Witness also the race among ute-makers to produce upmarket models with lavish equipment levels and look-at-me styling: Ranger Wildtrak, Hilux SR5 Limited, Colorado Z71 and any number of special-edition Volkswagen Amarok models.


Hilux is an iconic model for Toyota New Zealand.

What's going on? I'll tell you. SUV-type models are single most popular type of vehicle in NZ — bigger even than utes — which means that raised ride height, a “command” driving position and some semblance of off-road image are givens for the majority of new-vehicle buyers.

But there's a problem with modern SUVs.

As they have risen in popularity, they've become more mainstream. More comfortable. Very few have proper off-road ability because that compromises on-road comfort. And while very few SUVs/crossovers ever go off-road, the notion that they can is a huge part of the appeal. Modern SUVs are not tough, and that's a turnoff for many buyers.

Enter the one-tonne ute, which has advanced enormously in performance and refinement over the past five years, without losing any of its traditional off-road ability. Utes are the real thing, and for the family/lifestyle buyer under pressure to be riding high, they're a very cool alternative to a “soft-road” SUV that seems more at home on the school run than splashing through rivers. Even if said ute is still actually doing the school run.


Holden Colorado makes SUV fashion statement in Z71 guise.

This reaction against the dumbing-down of SUVs is also seen in the rise of “utes with boots”: SUV wagon models that are based on tough pickups. Consider the Ford Everest (a Ranger underneath) and forthcoming models like the Toyota Fortuner (based on Hilux) and Mitsubishi Pajero Sport (it's a Triton really).

Will utes fall victim to the same softening? Not as long as they're still required for actual work.

But consider this: there's a new fashion for utes that have all the ground clearance of 4WD but run instead with 2WD powertrains. Models like the Ranger Hi-Rider and Hilux Pre-Runner account for 35 percent of ute sales and growing. You have been warned.

But for now, utes are the credible SUV alternative. Because trucks are tough.

__________________________________________________________________________

Read more on this topic:

 • NZ's most popular car is a ute

 • The old Kiwi ute isn't what it used to be

 • Utes that think they're cars

 • Top five utes with boots

http://www.stuff.co.nz/motoring/lifestyle-vehicles/75683821

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

The $300,000 SUV: Bentley's gorgeous obscenity

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist | 5:04PM PDT - Monday, July 25, 2016


Just an average Pacific Heights cruise you will never, ever take.

HERE'S a fun thing you can do — if by “fun” you mean “shamelessly obscene, totally silly and sort of karmically destructive.”

Why not treat yourself to a long, luxurious visit to the Bentley Bentayga luxury SUV online configurator? Hey, you could do a lot worse.

All things being equal — and of course, they most certainly are not — it's a damn fine place to waste half a day imagining what it might be like to be so numbly wealthy, to give so few f*cks for the sufferings of the plebeian world, that you have no problem whatsoever clicking “place order” after you've carefully designed your laughably excessive, bespoke, screw-the-world, all-your-kids-detest-you $330,000 “Fly Fishing Edition” ultra-lux SUV no one anywhere actually needs because, well, since when do sheiks go fly fishing in Qatar? Does it even matter?

Bentley, of course, doesn't give a damn what you think. Why should they? The fabulously snooty, storied British automaker makes some of the world's most beautiful, overcooked, preposterously expensive, leather-soaked 12-cylinder land yachts, most custom-built for sheiks and tycoons, rappers and royalty and all kinds of vastly unhip billionaire sloths who conflate class and good taste with refrigerated $3,000 leather holsters for their champagne. And they're selling more cars than ever.

It's also, of course, a brand you don't see much in the U.S., save for a handful of Flying Spurs tooling around the Hamptons and a few Continental GTs in Los Angeles or in the private parking lots of Google HQ — but which, along with far sexier Aston Martins, you can easily find scurrying around the toniest backstreets of London, Morocco, the UAE and, well, who really cares where else.


What, not soaking your feet in a leather-clad bucket of gold-flaked champagne whilst you tie that fly, bro?


Choose from literally dozens of hides, color combos, woods, metals, gemstones, human bone, the flesh of
small infants, tiny birds, exotic tiger pelts, the skins of endangered dolphins, the teeth of virgin schoolboys
and/or the finest pubic hair of nubile French belly dancers raised solely on a diet of perfectly round grapes
and Indonesian breast milk and cocaine.


The Lamborghini Urus will look something like this, only sillier.

But that might soon change. See, the Bentayga is the first full-sized SUV designed by a super-premium luxury brand (Lamborghini is, apparently, next, followed by Rolls Royce), and, given how SUVs are, of course, a distinctly American (read: bloated, heavy, shamelessly inefficient) mutation, you can sort of understand why the very first hero shot you see on the Bentayga's splash page was taken — hey would you look at that? — right atop Pacific Heights.

Target market, anyone? You listening, Zuck?

Do you see them? In that photo up there? The perfectly pristine, violently over-pampered family of wealthy white folks whipping around the corner from their Pac Heights summer house and headed, presumably, for the husband's meeting with the key investors in his new cryogenics startup? Can you feel the icy emotional chill between the neglected siblings? The biting resentment of the parents? The warm joy provided by the liquid Xanax misting from the custom $20,000 “mood-lifting” Bentley air-purifying system? I bet you can.

One thing to be freely admitted: As someone who's spent an inordinate amount of time playing with nearly all the top automakers' online configurators, from Porsche to Aston, Audi to Ferrari, and finding many of them clunky and uninspired (and even downright boring), Bentley's version, as far as absurd distractions go, is nothing sort of fantastic.

It's fast, it's beautifully designed, everything from its pitch-perfect languaging to its sumptuous layout has been thought through to the Nth — as you might expect when you're about to drop $210K for the base Bentayga (upwards of $300K, nicely loaded, not including the $600 ashtrays).


Bentley laughs at your silly notions of “dashboard”


All a real man needs for a day of fishing whilst on multiple anti-depressants due to being so rich and confused and lost.


Fine day for effortlessly mocking the plebeian classes.

Also, this must-see: Notice that main photo of the GG Bridge on Bentley USA's home page? It's a whopping 53 billion pixels. Bentley calls it “The world's most extraordinary car photo.” Scroll in as close as you can to see why.

Fun fact: Did you know Bentley only uses leather from cows raised in cooler European climates? Because that way, the cows suffer from fewer insect bites, which means fewer flaws in the leather? True. To give you an idea of just how thoughtful. (Thanks, Wired).

But it's also a curious thing, given how the brand only sells about 11,000 cars a year, total, across the entire planet, with a mere 3,000 of them in the US (which is a tad more than Ferrari's 2,300, but a far cry from sister-brand Porsche, which moves about 50,000 vehicles a year in the states, but which remains a tad shy of the 250,000 units Ford sells of just the Explorer, every single year, all by itself). Then again, according to Bentley's site, the US remains the brand's largest single market, with China close behind. The U.K. isn't even a factor. Clearly there are far more B's out there than meets the eye.

Which also means that Bentley knows where its caviar is crackered. After all, this is the land of billionaire tech drones in tedious gray T-shirts and terrible haircuts, guys dripping with cash but with little idea what to do with it (and even less skill at handling a 911), but who like to think of themselves as passably manly and only slightly less pale than your average British prince.

No wonder Bentley has come up with a perfect message for them, and their “extra” 300 grand: Why not come fly fishing, you bewildered, glorious dorks?


Why, for the price of that loaded Bentayga, you could but THREE of Tesla's top-of-the-line
Model Xs (at $110K each). But what are you, a peasant?

• Email: Mark Morford

• Mark Morford on Twitter and Facebook.

http://blog.sfgate.com/morford/2016/07/25/the-300000-suv-bentleys-gorgeous-obscenity