Mark Gladwell, writing in the New Yorker in 2004 presented the bare facts on the Four Wheel Drive craze with three mighty strokes of the pen. He outlines the history of the four wheel drive, examines the safety and discusses the phsychology of the buyer with the psych guru hired by the design team. Lizard Brain Fools Car Buyers is the on-air outline of the story, there’s an excerpt on this site, and the full article on Gladwell’s site.