#4x4

While the full-size Bronco might be one of the hottest games in town, its performance in some key safety measures failed to wholly impress the IIHS crash test dummies. Their major beefs? Headlights and whiplash.

You may recall the brouhaha surrounding the Ford Bronco hardtop, a piece of the SUV that held up the initial rollout of the much-awaited model before causing a recall thanks to odd wear patterns. Specifically, certain roof units had a manufacturing deficiency which caused them to discolor and expose a honeycomb pattern after being subjected to particular levels of water and humidity (read: everyday conditions for some types of customers).

Now, it appears Ford is done like dinner with the issue, electing to destroy every single hardtop collected through the recall.

Thanks to Toyota’s glacier-like design cycle, a new Tundra is something most of us will experience only a few times in our adult lives. How long was the last generation around? Well, George W. Bush still had nearly three more years in the White House when the XK50 Tundra was unveiled at the Chicago Auto Show in February 2006. Yeah, it’s been a minute.

All that changed when the curtain dropped on the ’22 Tundra earlier this year. While the mighty and burly TRD Pro has gotten a lot of the press (and most of the promotional photos), there are actually about half a dozen trims on offer, some of which can be layered with options and packages.

Despite what we’d all like to think, America isn’t always the first to receive a particular new vehicle – even when it is made by one of our largest automakers. That was the case with the current Ford Ranger, a pickup truck which was on sale in other markets before it showed up on our shores. Even now, other iterations (Ranger Raptor, anyone?) are not found in North American showrooms.

Such is the case for the next-gen Ranger as well, it seems. Ford launched the revamped mid-sizer in an online event last night, showing off a trio of trims and detailing several powertrains that are unlikely to be options in this country. One thing’s virtually assured, however – it probably won’t take Ford as long to drag this Ranger across the pond as it did with the current model.

Our fancy-pants Managing Ed. is currently enjoying the sunny and rocky environs of Moab, sampling different variants of the new-for-’22 Jeep Grand Cherokee. His impressions will appear on these digital pages in due time but, until then, let’s examine what might just be The Right Spec of this popular SUV.

Well, they’ve announced pricing for the non-hybrid models, anyway. Apparently putting a value on positive and negative electrons takes a bit more time. Nevertheless, we now know precisely the amount that will be hoovered from your bank account to get into a new-for-’22 Tundra.

As you’d expect, it’s a jump from the old truck.

Did that headline grab your attention? As proponents of unmuffled V8 engines, it certainly grabbed ours. Gearheads have been shouting for an eight-cylinder Bronco ever since the first sketches of the Wrangler-fighter appeared all those years ago. Yesterday, in the desert near Las Vegas, Ford finally introduced such a rig.

There’s a catch, of course: the Bronco DR is strictly meant for off-road racing. And it’ll cost a cool quarter-mil.

For anyone looking forward to a new iteration of the Ford Ranger (*raises hand*), it seems like November 24 would be a good day to mark on your calendar. In a teaser video released today on YouTube, the Blue Oval announced they’ll be showing what they’re calling a ‘global’ midsize pickup truck on that day.

It will be broadcast by the crew at Ford Europe, and the teaser was voiced by an Aussie. Sounds pretty global to us.

GM’s mid-sizer showed up as a contestant in the Ace of Base series a couple of years ago, back when the four-banger could be paired with a manual transmission. Chevy has since quietly removed that option from its order sheet, leaving cheapskates frugal shoppers with a fistful of automatic transmission.

An advantage of these Right Spec posts? The ability to venture beyond the bargain basement. Despite its second-rung status in the Chevy Truck pecking order in terms of size, there’s no shortage of trim configurations for this bowtie pickup. Throw in a trio of body styles plus a few engine choices, and the decision tree grows quite a number of branches.

With every mainstream automaker on the planet seeking to pad their bottom line with tasty SUV profits, the number of jacked-up wagons on offer is truly dizzying. Most of them are car-based, of course, including several in Toyota’s own wheelhouse – witness the mystifying Corolla Cross introduced this year.

This makes the 4Runner something of a glorious throwback. Perched on its toes and looking out into traffic with a lantern jaw, this SUV may be old as the hills but is enjoying some of its most robust sales to date.

When Toyota announced that the Land Cruiser wouldn’t be coming back to the United States, off-road people shrugged and got back into their clapped-out 4Runners. Despite being incredibly capable wherever pavement is in short supply and having a pedigree that rivals Jeep’s Wrangler, the Land Cruiser is a prohibitively expensive vehicle. Toyota’s penchant for overbuilding vehicles merged with the model’s luxurious bent, resulting in a product that retailed at $87,030 before adding a single option, and sales volumes reflected this.

It was just too rich for most Americans and sales suffered as a result. But Lexus has confirmed the Cruiser-based LX will be returning and recently teased the new model’s next-generation online. While the manufacturer hasn’t confirmed that the 2022 Lexus LX 600 will be a rebadged version of Toyota’s off-road emperor, literally every generation of the LX series has been.

Jeep has decided to jump in the expensive end of the SUV pool with the truck-based Wagoneer and Grand Wagoneer. By now you’ve read Tim’s reviews of the brutes and had time to make up your mind if Jeep is on the right track or not with its ‘different lengths of sausage’ approach to styling. Hey, it works for Audi.

Drilling down into the minutiae of trims and features is always fun. Let’s see if we can parse The Right Spec from the maze of options on offer in this segment’s newest player.

As if Ford didn’t have enough headaches in terms of pickup truck supply, the derailment of a train carrying a load of the things has thrown the automaker even further off track. According to local media, a freight train ran into trouble while hauling the things through Missouri, creating a stack of metal that Blue Oval suits certainly could do without seeing right now.

Here’s the good news: no injuries or environmental damage was reported, save for the new pair of pants that was surely required for the train’s operator.

The chips are down in Ohio, with semiconductor shortage reaching the factory floor where Jeep builds its Gladiator truck. According to reports, the Stellantis plant responsible for assembly of the lantern-jawed pickup, Toledo South, will halt the models’ production next week.

Wrangler production is not affected. For now.

If you’re initially confused between the Grand Cherokee L and Wagoneer (both Grand and not), we don’t blame you. They are distinguishable side-by-each – but separately? Not so much. Think of it this way: The GCL is a unibody design with V6 and V8 options while the Wago is body-on-frame and has two V8 choices.

The Jeep Grand Cherokee L was put through its First Drive paces on this site just a month ago. With that top-tier entrée having settled nicely, it is time to paw through the chaff six different trim levels and figure out which one makes for The Right Spec.