Comments by "afcgeo" (@afcgeo882) on "IWrocker" channel.

  1. Garda (singular) and Gardai (plural, pronounced like “gardee”) = police in Irish. We do have dual rear wheels in vans in the US. Both, Ford Transit and Mercedes/Freightliner Sprinter are available with them. They’s most often found as 15-pax high top passenger vans. Ireland mostly uses Hyundais for police vehicles and the city cars tend to have the plain white livery, while the motorway (highway) units are high visibility. As for the variety of brands… Ireland doesn’t make cars, so they have no domestic industry to protect and no preconceptions. They buy what works for them in the moment.
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  2. Both of your cars are CLEARLY CUVs, not wagons. The reason why wagons aren’t popular is simple: we have larger roads and parking spaces than those in Europe and Asia. Up to the 1990s families used very large station wagons because they could fit a family of 7-8 and their stuff. No other vehicle aside from a full size van (G20, Econoline or Ram Van) or the Chevy/GMC Suburban could. In Europe they developed smaller vans (for their smaller streets) for that. Now comes Chrysler with 7-8 passenger minivans and with economical 4-6 cylinders and FWD they decimate the station wagons. Minivans become all the range for around a decade until manufacturers start building CUVs that match the fuel economy and utility of minivans, but add AWD and rugged looks. Americans transition to CUVs from those minivans in the mid-2000s because of AWD and their image of toughness/safety. In Europe, meanwhile, they would love to transition that way too, but high fuel prices and small roads/parking force them to stay in smaller vehicles. Hatchbacks, wagons and small vans (Transit Connect style) remain their choices for utility family transport.
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  3. The DAF XG+ 660 is pretty impressive as well.
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  4.  @arne1881 Just understand that Scandinavians are extremely patriotic and most cars in those countries are also Volvo and Saab, despite Saab being terrible for a long time and no longer made for over a decade.
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