"I don't think most self respecting Americans would be caught alive or dead in that thing."

To some extent I agree. But I think that the main objections in this vein are centered around roles tangential to what a vehicle is primarily designed to do, get a limited number of passengers and cargo from point 'A' to point 'B'.

What pretty much started as 'You can have any color as long as it is black' with a very limited number visual amenities has shifted from practical productivity in the physical world to vehicle as expression of individual worth and status.

The locus shifting from tool for transport to statement and symbol. From moving me and mine at minimum cost and maximum convenience to 'How do I look in it' and 'What will people think of me after they see me in it'.

Observation being that most FWD vehicles will never spend any significant amount of time 'off-road'. Most vehicles that are pushing 6000 pounds and more are heavy because they ostensibly regularly carry a significant amount of cargo. Mostly they don't. The vast majority of the time they carry little more than a single person and a sack or two of groceries.

My neighbor always claims he needs his FWD F-250 to carry cargo for his 'ranch'. From observation the reality is that his ranch is a small cabin with a single horse and once, twice at most given seven years that I know of, a year he shifts a couple of sheets of plywood or a couple dozen fence posts with his truck. The balance of the trips have him driving to and from work and around town. Funny thing being I carry heavier loads more often in a much smaller vehicle.

I don't wish to single him out or condemn him as an individual. He is a nice guy and good neighbor. My intent is to point out how absolutely typical he is of a wide swath of the American population. The man works in an office as a cubicle gopher and spends 99% of his time in a typical suburban existence. But he 'Needs' his truck.

IMO what he needs is the truck as prop as a last vestige of his masculinity and the rugged persona he projects. He doesn't even take care of the one horse he keeps. The guy living next door to his 'ranch' does that for him. Seeing as that he has 50 head of horses and hundreds of cattle it isn't a big thing. He does it mostly to be neighborly. I'm not sure how well the horse would be cared for otherwise because my neighbor only gets up there a couple of times a year.

It is interesting to compare the real rancher with the suburban version. The real ranched seldom wears a cowboy hat or cowboy boots. His belt buckle is a small nondescript model from WalMart. his hat is baseball cap from the feed store and his boots are tan work boots. My neighbor makes a point of wearing a cowboy hat, pointy boots, bolo tie and silver belt buckle to match. The FWD F-250 is just a prop in the play.

Irony being that the real rancher mostly tools around in a beater Toyota pick-up. He has a seldom used larger truck to shift animals but 90% of the time you would see him in his rice burner.

My observation is that it is clear evidence of our wealth, and ability to cater to extravagances, that people can afford to buy and maintain vehicles, and entire artificial lifestyles, that are valued primarily as symbols. Instead of as simple functional tools for getting a practical and necessary job done.