What is it about canoes that turns people into leftist liberals?
I just bought a 96 Suzuki Sidekick Sport to pull behind my motorhome. I'll be putting my canoes on top. It's the earlier iteration of the Vitara. My main criteria was towable 4 wheels down, and relatively inexpensive.

Canoe tie downs are not that hard to install. You can burn a hole thru a loop of webbing and put it under a bolt and you're all set. I usually do that using one of the bolts on the hood hinges. The webbing lays under the hood when not in use and I pull it out thru the side of the hood when I need it. The big advantage of tying down at the back of the hood is that the tie down line goes forward therefore stopping the boat from flying forward in a collision or when braking hard. It's very hard to get tie downs that stop this kind of motion without a front tie down that goes backwards. The only other way I know of is running a line from the bow back to the roofrack, but then you're depending on the roof rack attachments. I always tie my boats down to the rack and to the car in the front and back. We once rolled a Land Cruiser FJ55 with the canoe on top and it was still in place, kind of, when we landed upright. You could see the impression of the canoe in the dirt where we landed upside down.

The new FJCruisers are pretty sharp looking. Do they come with diesels?

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1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13