Originally Posted By: NHHEMI
Avenger no question. Don't buy a 16 year old boy a truck or SUV for his 1st vehicle. Recipe for disaster. As to the comments that the Dakota will hold fewer people you obviously were never a 16 year old boy with a truck bed. The STUPID and DANGEROUS stuff I did at 16 in an open truck bed scares me now to think about it. Kids these days as a rule are even stupider than we were. Stick with the FWD car.
The big difference today is that its flat-out illegal to ride in the bed of a truck in most areas (certainly all areas I'm aware of). And the cops will stop you PRONTO for that, no question, no ambiguity, no leniency. That's just not going to be a problem like it might have been when we were kids.
Of course I grew up around trucks, everyone I knew grew up around trucks, and even when it was legal we didn't ride in the bed of trucks. We spent too much time *working* with trucks to be amused with riding around in the bed of one for grins.