The small, sometimes wrong-wheel drive,“car-based truck” a la the El Camino has come and gone. And come back. And faded back into obscurity. This platform has been perennially popular in Australia, why won’t it stick around in the U.S.?

Paul Niedermeyer gets into a little history of the car/truck we’re seeing a pseudo renaissance of right now in the 2017 Honda Ridgeline in his post . What a strange little car that was.

This week, I posited that mass-market pickup trucks are slowly morphing into “cars.” The Rampage isn’t exactly what I had in mind, I think the massive crew-cab luxury trucks that have become a staple of the American automotive market are here to stay from a stylistic standpoint. But I also believe they’re going to get softer and softer until they’re actually practical for the average suburban-dwelling individual.

As for the super-small “utility cars,” these babies are still pretty popular in markets all over the world. Think they’ll ever stand another chance in America?