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this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2026
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cars
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The explosion of these cars in aus is due to a change (now revoked) in the tax write off for work vehicles. The cap was increased to like 100k or something from like 30, so suddenly instead of a single cab ute you could by a dual can luxury vehicle as your needed vehicle for work.
So inefficient, the tax break was initially to reflect that you may need a second, specialised vehicle, to carry tools etc. Like a ute or van. Not so you could buy a stupid family car. So many households in my neighbourhood now have one of these and an SUV for mum and the kids. You don't need two giant cars per household!
You don't need one giant car. There's literally no more utility in these than a smaller, lower to the ground pickup truck or a cargo van. Plenty of countries handle construction, farming, and other industrial workloads while not allowing these things. They should be illegal, not limited.
I live somewhere where roads are pretty rough and if you're working on site you're often going over unsealed roads. I am sympathic to people needing vehicles with like 30 cm ground clearance and a lot of suspension travel once you leave cities.
The cabs are generally oversized and the engines larger than they need (rent a vehicle that one time in your life you need to carry 2 tonnes lol) but workers outside cities do benefit from the clearance.
I have a "small SUV" (alas noone makes station wagons anymore :() and the bottom of the car looks fucking rough from shit like driveways with 20cm drops at the curbs and adventures on dirt roads destroyed by logging trucks. I don't have to carry 300kg of material and tools on the reg either.
Again, there are a ton of countries that handle things just as well without any households having access to these. Do you think they don't have unpaved roads or something? You didn't really give any actual reason that anyone with brainworms wouldn't also give.
There are no conditions under which you need a road vehicle that also handles really tough offroading, while carrying a large load and then also need to drive it home. There's just no circumstance.
The ground clearance with these isn't even that great. You can put a slight lift on an old 90s Tacoma and get basically the same clearance while still having the hood be low enough to be safe.
The SUV trucks have low floors to give more headroom.
Ok well like a major connection washed away last year and isn't in the agenda to be repaired for like 2 years so until policy around road maintanence and design changes idk what to tell you. Shit out here is fucked, and it would be great to have better transport and construction but people live here now and need to get to work.
The Commodore vs Falcon debate has been modernized to the Colorado and Ranger one. Soon it'll be f150 vs Silverado, and then F250 vs 2500.
The holden Berlina station wagon was the ultimate standard family car and you can't change my mind.
Could fit 3 kids and 5 people's luggage, furniture/tools, or a family and the dogs. Standard sedan form factor. Towing capacity absolutely suitable for household landscaping/tip dumping/large furniture transport.
If the roads around you were paved and slope didn't exceed like 50 degrees you would never need anything else. It fucking pissed me off seeing everyone say the needed an SUV "to take the kids to sport" or on holiday when these were being made. They were cheaper, more practical, usually had more storage, and more prosocial.
I still see some of those old Berlina's kicking about here. Not as much as out east, but it's nice to see how well those things have managed to hang on.
Our family's kicked the bucket, it works but the cylinders are fucked enough that the rings don't seal and it burns motor oil. Repair involves getting that engine out, resurfacing the cylinders, and modifying the pistons for a larger size of ring than can currently fit. Not worth it for a 20 year old car :(
I loved that thing. Never a job it wasn't suitable for. It was amazing when we were teens and amazing to be able to borrow as adults moving/furniture shopping/rennoing etc.
Solid car.
That's a shame, I see them at pick and pulls all the time, but piston ring failure claimed a lot of these things. My 2001 Mitsubishi Triton needs a ton of work, but at least the block is solid.