Congratulations you anecdotal experience means nothing. I see pick up trucks ALL the time in rural areas (in Germany and the US) and in the US they aren’t all hulking behemoth dodge rams. Those fill the suburbs. There’s nothing wrong with wanting a small compact truck for hauling stuff. Trucks like the 95 toyota hilux, 98 Ford ranger, and 92 Jeep Comanche are great for hauling stuff like used furniture or concrete powder and picking up your kids from school without looking like an Abrams tank.
This is a strictly American thing and the US isn’t the moon
Except the 2 best selling cars GLOBALLY in 2020 was the Toyata corolla and the Toyota hilux a fucking truck. The hilux was 2020′s best-selling VEHICLE in 14 countries, including Argentina, Australia, Panama, South Africa and Fiji.
I live in rural Germany. The only people with these trucks are the ones that never use the bed. In fact, I’ve recently seen one at the hardware store. The guy bought a shelf maybe 1.5 m long. Neither did it fit in the bed, nor did it fit in the cabin. Such a worthless piece of shit.
Everyone in the trade business uses vans. For heavy duty hauling they obviously use something bigger than a fucking pickup truck.
That out of the way, I see the appeal in smaller old-school trucks. They usually have larger beds than the ridiculously oversized pieces of shit that start sprouting in urban areas.
Everyone in the trade business uses vans. For heavy duty hauling they obviously use something bigger than a fucking pickup truck.
My 2015 Dodge Ram Hemi pickup truck and 24,000lbs/11,000kg tandem axle tilt bed trailer would like a word. Pretty hard to get a skidsteer or tractor in a van…And the cost to own and insure even a single axle truck and trailer is far more expensive, (I’ve done the math), and far less versatile. And hiring a large truck makes scheduling very difficult for weather sensitive jobs far too often. Not to mention the loading and offloading almost always needs a ramp or dock of some kind for those larger trucks - hence the tilt bed trailer.
And when not being used as a haul/work vehicle, it can get groceries or even a 6 pack of beer…
That said, do urbane Cowboys/Cowgirls need a pickup truck? Probably not. But it’s a free, but often stupid choice they are free to make.
I think people tend to pick the wrong targets in this debate. Stuff like the Ford Maverick and F150 are usually people who really don’t need a truck, and most crossover/SUV drivers would be fine with a sedan. Once you get into the F250 and higher, though, you’re mostly dealing with people who actually use their truck for a living. There are reasons workers in the US choose those–such as fifth wheel trailers–and there are reasons why European workers don’t (except when they do).
And it’s really silly. Vans for that kind of work are generally truck frames with a different back end. It doesn’t make that much difference at that level. The best you can say is that the hood doesn’t stick out as far and therefore visibility is better, but even that’s not always true, and there are other tradeoffs with that design.
Wait, in 2020? Why not look up 22 or 23? I mean, it’s not like anything weird would have impacted the market in 2020, huh? And hey, it doesn’t even look that bad for your case, the Hilux and the F150 both break the top 10 in the most recent source I could find, if narrowly. The best seller I see is a SUV, and man, trust me, I don’t share your defensiveness here, you are super allowed to mock those.
Now, I don’t speak for the whole world, but I sure speak for myself. Since I was checking, in my location small vans and pickups all together account for less than 10% of the national market as per the most recent data (they don’t even bother separating those segments, apparently). Large commercial vans and small commercial trucks are actually as big of a segment.
So yeah, anecdotally and statistically, it’s exceedingly rare to see a pickup truck here. Turns out you also don’t speak for the rest of the world. Because, you know, nobody does. That tends to happen with hundreds of countries and billions of people.
Congratulations you anecdotal experience means nothing. I see pick up trucks ALL the time in rural areas (in Germany and the US) and in the US they aren’t all hulking behemoth dodge rams. Those fill the suburbs. There’s nothing wrong with wanting a small compact truck for hauling stuff. Trucks like the 95 toyota hilux, 98 Ford ranger, and 92 Jeep Comanche are great for hauling stuff like used furniture or concrete powder and picking up your kids from school without looking like an Abrams tank.
Except the 2 best selling cars GLOBALLY in 2020 was the Toyata corolla and the Toyota hilux a fucking truck. The hilux was 2020′s best-selling VEHICLE in 14 countries, including Argentina, Australia, Panama, South Africa and Fiji.
You don’t speak for the rest of the world
I live in rural Germany. The only people with these trucks are the ones that never use the bed. In fact, I’ve recently seen one at the hardware store. The guy bought a shelf maybe 1.5 m long. Neither did it fit in the bed, nor did it fit in the cabin. Such a worthless piece of shit.
Everyone in the trade business uses vans. For heavy duty hauling they obviously use something bigger than a fucking pickup truck.
That out of the way, I see the appeal in smaller old-school trucks. They usually have larger beds than the ridiculously oversized pieces of shit that start sprouting in urban areas.
My 2015 Dodge Ram Hemi pickup truck and 24,000lbs/11,000kg tandem axle tilt bed trailer would like a word. Pretty hard to get a skidsteer or tractor in a van…And the cost to own and insure even a single axle truck and trailer is far more expensive, (I’ve done the math), and far less versatile. And hiring a large truck makes scheduling very difficult for weather sensitive jobs far too often. Not to mention the loading and offloading almost always needs a ramp or dock of some kind for those larger trucks - hence the tilt bed trailer.
And when not being used as a haul/work vehicle, it can get groceries or even a 6 pack of beer…
That said, do urbane Cowboys/Cowgirls need a pickup truck? Probably not. But it’s a free, but often stupid choice they are free to make.
I think people tend to pick the wrong targets in this debate. Stuff like the Ford Maverick and F150 are usually people who really don’t need a truck, and most crossover/SUV drivers would be fine with a sedan. Once you get into the F250 and higher, though, you’re mostly dealing with people who actually use their truck for a living. There are reasons workers in the US choose those–such as fifth wheel trailers–and there are reasons why European workers don’t (except when they do).
And it’s really silly. Vans for that kind of work are generally truck frames with a different back end. It doesn’t make that much difference at that level. The best you can say is that the hood doesn’t stick out as far and therefore visibility is better, but even that’s not always true, and there are other tradeoffs with that design.
Wait, in 2020? Why not look up 22 or 23? I mean, it’s not like anything weird would have impacted the market in 2020, huh? And hey, it doesn’t even look that bad for your case, the Hilux and the F150 both break the top 10 in the most recent source I could find, if narrowly. The best seller I see is a SUV, and man, trust me, I don’t share your defensiveness here, you are super allowed to mock those.
Now, I don’t speak for the whole world, but I sure speak for myself. Since I was checking, in my location small vans and pickups all together account for less than 10% of the national market as per the most recent data (they don’t even bother separating those segments, apparently). Large commercial vans and small commercial trucks are actually as big of a segment.
So yeah, anecdotally and statistically, it’s exceedingly rare to see a pickup truck here. Turns out you also don’t speak for the rest of the world. Because, you know, nobody does. That tends to happen with hundreds of countries and billions of people.