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My main two priorities are the ability to haul lumber and the ability to drive over curbs in my way.

Ford F-150's with big grills! I was in a car wreck once with one of those bigass grills on the front. I didn't feel SHIT when my sister's boyfriend wrecked into the back of a van that crossed during a redlight. My head lunged forward and that was it.

When I was in a wreck in my 1988 Toyota Camry back in August 2006 just a week before I joined the army, boy I felt the entire impact. I flew off the side of the road and there was a huge dropoff to the right, I thought I was gonna roll and tumble to my death, but luckily, the car landed and got stuck between two dirt banks. I quickly climbed out of it before the car dislodged out of the dirt banks and plummeted and rolled to the bottom of the hill.

So yeah.. bigass trucks with huge thick stainless steel bar grills for the win, bitch. Because you won't feel that shit at all when you wreck.

Big steel bumpers like on old cars do well to keep you and your car intact, but they kill the shit out of whatever you hit. I personally prefer minimizing that.

I like this. Okay, what is your favorite automotive company???

I think it depends a lot on what you want out of your car. I personally look at two companies as the main; Nissan, and GMC.

It's really no secret that the Japanese typically make a better car than the Americans. It's not really that shocking when you think about it either; Japan develops and exports a lot of technology whereas America mostly exports ideas. We can think up a great car, but when it gets down to the nitty-gritty of actual design, fabrication, and application of these ideas we drop the ball. I imagine this has to do with the fact that America is more consumerist than true capitalist. While it's not at all specific to us, more than any other people in the world we buy things just for the sake of buying things, which means that quality, particularly on the front of longevity, isn't a super-big concern here - after all, if something lasts too long we won't replace it enough! For more information on this, watch Story of Stuff.

So, this general American sucky-ness leads me to look to our good friend Japan. Just from general observation and talking with friends I've noticed that owners of Nissans and, to a slightly lesser extent, Toyotas have far fewer complaints than any other car company (though the good Toyota-reports all come from car owners, not truck owners). My dad has had his Nissan Frontier for quite 9 years and, being absent minded and not at all a car/ruck enthusiast, he has taken absolutely terrible care of the thing. It has, however, survived very well. There was a minor suspension problem caused from an alignment problem he left unchecked for probably around 8 months, and the timing chain didn't break but our mechanic noticed that it was pretty worn and thought it better to replace it early. Over all, not bad considering that it has almost 130K on it, most of it from an aggressive San Francisco commute. On a related note, my mom recently got a Nissan Altama which is pretty awesome. It has great mileage, ridiculously good handling, breaking, and acceleration, and it is sufficiently comfortable inside that you feel like you might be piloting an extremely compact mansion. Speaking of which, it utilizes Japanese magic often seen in anime because the inside is at least 20% larger than the outside. (My mom just told me to tell you that "It's the best car in the world.")

Unfortunately Nissan is currently only making the Frontier and the Titan. If you go to the Nissan Website and click "trucks" you can fiddle with the "Build Your Frontier/Titan" feature to see what all your options are. Pretty quickly you'll run face-first into a few limitations. For example, if they have a Crew Cab with an extended truck, they are going out of their way to hide the damn thing. It's not too shocking when you think about it though; it takes only a cursory look at traffic in most of metropolitan Japan to realize that it's not exactly wise to have a big honking Texas-style vehicle. It's scary trying to find parking over in San Francisco, and downright terrifying to parallel park there in a truck. But in Japan I'd be afraid to parallel park so much as a toaster oven. Besides, between gas prices and the economy of the American market it just doesn't make sense to make big cars.

When looking more for power, towing, and the ability to run over really big stuff I turn to GMC. I've known a lot of owners of GMC trucks and SUVs and have heard only heard the standard car complaints, and I've known people who literally drive their cars into the ground and I've seen GMs take a beating a lot of other things wouldn't handle with so much grace. I think the thing I like about GMC trucks more than any other American truck is that I find them easier to work on (and I can generally find parts easier and cheaper) which is a big plus for someone like me who enjoys coming in from the garage covered in grease smears. If you peek at the GMC Builder and compare to the features available on a Nissan you quickly realize that it might be possible to throw a Nissan Frontier into the back of some of these. As useful as this is, historically I have found that a GMC is more likely to need the tow than a Nissan.

I think the thing about GMC that excites me the most is they have a Hybrid Sierra. About a 1,500 lb payload capability, can tow 6K lbs, 332 horse power (which is actually more powerful than most 1500 models), has equal highway gas mileage to a Nissan Frontier and 4 miles per gallon better in city gas mileage.

And because I'm a tree-hugging hippie, I love that I can have a big truck without having a big truck impact on the environment. I dream of someday running something like Polyface Farms, so a truck is a pretty basic necessity and having a cleaner, more nature-friendly truck is definitely in keeping with the spirit of my dream.

Hands down R35 GTR :p