Just a bit o' trivia-- "jeep" is old military slang. According to Minneapolis-Moline, who claimed to have developed the first one, it's named after the Popeye character Jeep, who was of indeterminate species but could answer and do about anything. The M-M jeep from the 1930s was a 4x4 artillery prime mover that had four large wheels, good ground clearance, and was geared for enough power at the wheels to drag heavy things over a variety of terrain. It wasn't really a conventional farm tractor (almost none of which were 4WD at that time), it wasn't a truck, and it definitely wasn't a car, but it could do just about anything, and therefore was a "jeep". The tiny 1/4-ton Willy's offroad military cars came along a bit later and co-opted the name.
I'd say "jeep" fits a 4Runner well enough. I've owned a variety of actual trucks, and don't consider the 4Runner one...its cargo capacity and weight limits are pathetic in comparison. To me, a "truck" is usually something that can haul at least its own weight as a payload, pull a trailer at least twice its own weight, something like that.
SUV ("soov!" I love confusing folks...) fits best. It's a sport-utility vehicle, and a pretty good one at that. More and more, vehicles such as the Highlander, which are closer to 4x4 minivans than jeeps, are being called SUVs, but whatever. If they don't do so well at sport activity (as far as vehicles go, this involves either extreme speed, offroading, or both, often competitive), I don't think those things really deserve the title SUV.
I'd say "jeep" fits a 4Runner well enough. I've owned a variety of actual trucks, and don't consider the 4Runner one...its cargo capacity and weight limits are pathetic in comparison. To me, a "truck" is usually something that can haul at least its own weight as a payload, pull a trailer at least twice its own weight, something like that.
SUV ("soov!" I love confusing folks...) fits best. It's a sport-utility vehicle, and a pretty good one at that. More and more, vehicles such as the Highlander, which are closer to 4x4 minivans than jeeps, are being called SUVs, but whatever. If they don't do so well at sport activity (as far as vehicles go, this involves either extreme speed, offroading, or both, often competitive), I don't think those things really deserve the title SUV.
