Car appreciation... the aesthetics, the engineering, etc

I had a Disco 3. Great car if you often need to mover around large amounts of crap and people the the same time in non urban areas.

Avoid at all costs unless it is virtually brand new, or if you have circa £10k a year to spend on never ending hours of disgnostics and subsequent repair bills.

The sheer amount of electronic controlled systems in the things is astounding, and every single one of them will fail at somepoint.

I think I spent circa £5k over two years on mine just keeping the stupid air suspension working properly. Most of that was just trying to figure oout what that actual problem was.

‘Polite suburbanites of acute social sensitivity and chronic personal insecurity were ready and happy to believe that all it took to keep them safely on the road and immune from danger was a big, robust, heavy demi-truck with four-wheel-drive.’

The pick up idea has been torpedoed. SUV is the next option.

How come?

I'm a bit confused. If you need to move tonnes worth of building materials and manure what else is there other than a US style pickup or an open backed transit?

A left field option if that sort of high weight or smells is going to be very occasional would be one of the big VAG estates with uprated rear shocks. A Passat/Superb are massive in the back and I bet there would be options, and it's not a huge amount of work to pay someone to do.