A unibody vehicle has a stressed body (engine bay, door supports, a,b,c pillars etc.) as opposed to a body on frame such as our current Dakotas (hence it is possible to do a body lift on our trucks). The advantages are a stronger, stiffer chassis compared to even a fully boxed ladder frame with a trade off in modularity meaning no cab/box options. Just like the Ridgeline.
Boxing the whole Dakota line will make no difference in the aftermarket/parts support for our trucks. It is essentially the same as dropping the 2nd gen for the 3rd. They share no parts so by that logic they should have no replacement parts. That isn't the case, so when the Dakota is axed for good it will have no more impact than a major redesign.
Most vehicles follow a 5 year production cycle, it is expected that tooling, R&D money and marketing will be paid for by this mark and if it is not the vehicle is a flop and will never prove profitable. The only regular exceptions to this rule are high-performance cars that have been designed to be at the cutting edge of current tech at the time of introduction. They are usually planned around an 8 or 10 year cycle as their recup times are much longer and they will likely still sell 10 years down the road essentially unchanged.
For example;
Honda S2000 (10 years)
Mazda RX-8 (10 years)
350z (8 years)
Dodge Viper (8 years) * the 2008 redesign was a refresh, new engine and tranny.
Lamborghini Murciélago (10 years)
To this end I would be absolutely blown away if we saw a 2011 model year Dakota without either a MAJOR redesign or a successor model.
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