Quote:
Originally Posted by Alfisti
The 80's and early 90's SUV amaze me, they really do. I mean, I am no engineer but just LOOKING at them they seem tipsy. How on earth did they get approved? Baffles me.
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I owned a 1987 Ford Ranger STX. It came with a 2" factory lift kit. It was fantastic off road and handled very well on the street. I had a friend with a 1986 Ford Bronco II (based of the Ranger chassis). Again a great handling street vehicle with high off road capability, he never crashed it. My wife and I owned a '95 Jeep Wrangler YJ from 1995 to 2009. Never came close to flipping it; in fact I spun it once in the dry, 90 deg. on the right exit apron from Wisconsin Avenue to Pooks Hill Road in Bethesda, MD chasing a 280Z that cut me off on the Beltway*. My bother and sisters had Chevrolet Suburbans and Blazers, none of which got off the wheels and killed anyone. So my first hand experience with many SUVs of the era you cite is pretty much different than your idea that such vehicles of the time were unsafe, they weren't.
* I didn't drive any slower in my early 20's to mid 30's than I do now.
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A manual transmission can be set to "comfort", "sport", and "track" modes simply by the technique and speed at which you shift it; it doesn't need "modes", modes are for manumatics that try to behave like a real 3-pedal manual transmission. If you can money-shift it, it's a manual transmission. "Yeah, but NO ONE puts an automatic trans shift knob on a manual transmission."