I always preferred station wagons. practical and cheap to run. difficult to find these days.
2 cross bars on roof and carry a stack of plywood easy on a station wagon.
My workplace has a 1997 Tacoma (214k miles) and a 2002 Ram (320k miles) that I can use anytime for bigger loads.
I’d reccomend getting one of those era Tacoma’s for $3k and maintain it meticulously. It will run 4 ever. terrible MPG but try to drive under 60 and mind gets 34 MPG which is acceptable
The downside of SUVs is they are incredibly dangerous ; roll over in a flash and are too heavy to maneuver ( ie stop ) safely. Plus I simply hate burning money on excess gasoline.
That was true in the past. But the development of the so-called Moose test Moose test has forced automakers to consider the stability of vehicles when making sudden turns, and current SUV's are actually very hard to flip on flat surfaces if their stability controls are turned on.
Around here, in California, those Tacomas are not cheap by any means whatsoever I think my brother bought a used 2006 Tacoma for about $16,000 and 8 years later he sold it for about $13,000. Those trucks are not cheap even used they hold their value like a Mercedes-Benz perhaps even better.