The $x4 is one of the supreme examples of viral marketing there has ever been.
There is only one reason that most people (ie not you and not me even though we have one to tow our karts) have a 4x4 and that's beacuse they have been sold one by the marketing department.
And why should the marketing department sell them? Well there was a TV documentary that pointed out that the cost of building a 4x4 was almost exactly the same as a mid-range Mondeo, but it sold for between 2 and 3 times the price of the Mondeo, so somewhere between 5 and 10 times as much profit.
The marketing departments were set the task of justifying that profit and they got the designers to build something that looked safe (just as they used to build cars that looked aerodynamic, because the average punter has no idea what is aerodynamic). Then the rumour spread that they were safer for your children and how guilty would you feel if your chidren were to die because you hadn't had the tank you really wanted. It was never found in a marketing document because you aren't meant to tell direct lies in those things.
Only one thing was better marketed than the 4*4, and that was the camera phone. Even now, especially now, the volume of phone space taken up with pictures vastly exceeds that taken up by talking and texting combined and 99.9% of them are completely inane and unnecessary (in as much as pre phone, one wouldn't have used a camera to take the shot or rung someone up about it.)
Now if only I could start the virus that would make karting as popular as skateboards.
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