Along with a smaller cousin, the CUV (compact utility vehicle), these rugged machines are the fastest growing segment of the car market.
But Mr. FitzSimons argues they are more like the blower Bentleys of the time -- rugged racing machines, operated by young aristocrats, proud of their engineering and undisguised by styling.
Although Land Rover still makes the Defender (and indeed it is still used as a Jeep-type transport by the British Military), that car is much more sophisticated and costly than the basic, rugged off-road machine Land Rover made up until the mid-1970s without much change.
(Yes, we can use that description for a crossover, since BMW's X5 is already the bellwether for these next-generation hybrid SUVs, and you'd never call that machine "rugged").. Why bring up VW in a feature about the $41,500 Audi A4 Cabriolet that just went on sale?
Laptop Magazine took an early look at the 2100 and found it to be a bit hefty due to its rugged frame, although the machine scored higher on certain benchmarking tests and the bigger keyboard and individual trackpad buttons were definite pluses.
Kamen says his improved power generators and water-purification machines are rugged enough and affordable enough for even remote villages.
These machines will be rugged, Linux-based and so energy-efficient that hand-cranking alone can generate sufficient power for operation.
If that is the case, Afghan election workers will have less than three weeks to roll out the vast apparatus of polling sites and voting machines across this rugged country.
To do so it enlisted engineers from poor countries such as India and China not simply because their labour was inexpensive, but also because they were able to focus on building medical machines cheap and rugged enough to be used in the developing world.In this it has taken a leaf out of GE's book.
Unquestionably, the DC-3 was the perfect machine for its time simple, rugged, easy to repair, forgiving in the air.
