This morning I found this youtube channel and listed to an excellent discussion between "The Car Guy Online" and his guest "Chello" about the failings of GM due to the Bean Counters being in control, or being prioritized above of the engineers. I thought it was an excellent interview and it really really hit home that our USA manufacturing priorities are mixed up. I was a Boeing engineer in a past life and I'm sure you all know their poor priorities the past 10 years, like your company's CEO being a CPA or lawyer vs him being an engineer, can quickly exacerbate this problem.

I want to come right out and say it now that I am only joining this discussion group and posting this topic because I feel that this community really needs to know about the vehicles that we and others are currently selling (eaglecars.com). In this day of google search being the key search tool for most folks, we are in a tough position because even the most ardent "Car Guys" do not know there are so many awesome rigs available, but they have never heard of, and therefore don't google search for them. Here is a case in point, when an American family needs an AWD reliable van these days their choices are pretty much boiled down to a Toyota Sienna. There are, however, many other choices that people have but they are just not aware of them. We import from Japan all of these AWD family vans and many even come with the vaunted Toyota 3.0 liter turbo diesel engine, such as : Toyota Grand Hiace, Toyota Hiace, Toyota Regius Ace, Toyota Noah, Toyota GrandVia, Toyota Estima Lucida, Toyota Estima Emina and Honda Odyssey. Yes the Odyssey was made in AWD, but for some reason they were never sold in the USA but we can import tham.

Because the US DOT only allows importing 25 year old cars most of what is available is later 1990s and early 2000s models. The good news is that these include the 3rd Gen 4Runner, imported as a Toyota Hilux Surf. In the interview mentioned above The Car Guy mentioned looking for a good, non rusty 2010 4Runner for his son and how expensive they were and how scarce a low mile one is to find. I am here to tell you that if you expand your search to include Hilux Surf you will find that we and many other importers have many excellent options to choose from. Good luck with your search!