[ToryMikey]

Originally Posted by Sprintey

Great post!

A common theme of the reviewers in the mags back in the day was this constant pursuit of better engineering. And so everything from RTS to ABS to IRS to discs happened. And we ended up with some very good cars, monocoque, 4 wheel discs, ABS, traction controls, increasing amounts of airbags, better crumple zones, more sophisticated suspensions.

In recent years the mechanical spec has gone backwards in volume sellers, the drums/separate chassis/live axles that gave my minesite Hilux 3 star safety (while locally made utes had to be 5 star) has become widespread everywhere. Party like it's 1982 with Watts links! Torsion bar on Mazda 3 zoom zoom...

At the current rate hopefully bench seats and 3 on the tree transmission shifters will return.

I'd be happy if manuals and 6 cylinder petrols returned at all!

I stand by my statement that a 3 on the tree crossflow XF has more enthusiast appeal than a Hilux