There sure are a lot of actual 4WD trucks without lockers when they are sold. I have to wonder what the difference is between a Tacoma sport and an AWD vehicle, I think it’s 2WD mode and maybe clearance. I think there are even jeep gladiators without lockers… is that a jeep or like a cool looking suburban pavement car?

“Off-roading” is a big thing that means different things. I live in Colorado, in the front range area (Boulder) and the popular guides sort of divide trails in to three: green easy, blue moderate and red hard. Most of the blue trails you can do in a bone stock 4WD road truck, probably most AWDs with clearance. You’d want to take it easy and think through a couple sections but it’s doable. We’ve gone to multiple 10th mountain division huts in Subarus, made it with no scraping or problems. This is most trails. Now there are the reds and the hard reds, you basically need a modified vehicle for them. There are some “trail ready” trucks coming from the factory now, I’m under the impression that the “off-roading community” usually feels that even those need modification. Modifying the vehicle and the technical trail challenge is the idea for them.

The difference is driving on technical obstacles for that specific challenge, the driving and the building of the vehicle versus driving on rougher terrain to get to a location. NPS probably also frowns on rock stacking and other “recovery” techniques when a vehicle cannot clear an object.