What are the differences between a van and an SUV?

BoF is better specifically because it's not as rigid. The frame flex adds to the suspension flex. The Unimog is probably the best example of this as both the cab and bed are mounted in 3 points each to improve the frame articulation.

Flex is desirable in specific cases of crawling but it's not desirable in other types of "off road" driving. I hate to generalize off road driving as a whole since there are many different cases where you'd want polar opposite characteristics depending on the terrain. I'm more of a dunes guy vs a rock crawler so I recognize my bias here.

An articulated chassis on a big truck like a unimog is cool and useful but I was talking about light trucks and SUVs that aren't meant to do that.

If anything, the articulation advantage comes from the frame being narrower, but that doesn't have to be the case.

The frame also makes it quite easy to add rated recovery points, which is generally a lot more difficult to do on a unibody as there usually aren't places on the chassis meant to deal with the load of the vehicle being snatched out of difficulty.

True but I wouldn't consider recovery points to be part of the capability of the vehicle independently but you are free to disagree there.

And in saying that an XJ will absolutely tear itself apart if you built it with big tires and put it through it's paces, frame stiffeners are very much a thing for them if you want to run larger than 33's.

I think this is a bit of an exaggeration. You see tons of XJ's on 33s or even 35's on trails and they are not tearing themselves apart. Some stiffeners or seam welding is a nice upgrade but most people get away without them just fine.

No, they are tubular spaceframe with panels dressed on top, which is lighter and considerably stronger than a unibody.

Tubular or monocoque is not inherently stronger or lighter than unibody. If anything, it is a little worse since you don't have the panels adding bracing. But either way, it is much much closer to a unibody than a BoF. They accomplish the exact same purpose of more rigidity, less weight.

This has never not been the case. Even back when cars were BoF convertibles still had extra rigidity added into the chassis.

Ford just lost a $1.7 BILLION dollar lawsuit last week over the last gen superduties killing dozens of people on rollover. I would argue this is still the case today with trucks, but SUVs have been better for a while I agree.

I'm not disagreeing at all that the best affordable offroad platforms today are BoF. Affordable is the key, you would not use BoF if absolute peak performance was the goal.

/r/cars Thread Parent