Now maybe I just never really paid much attention to pickup trucks but in my mind, they were always either two door two-seaters or two doors that seat four with an extended cab.
These days, however, I rarely see newer-wish model full size pickups without four standard doors, with shorter beds in back as a result. Now have these features always been available as options and always just as popular as they are today and I just haven’t noticed before or is it a new-wish trend?
It is simply a marketing trend. There isn’t much money to be made on “regular” pickup trucks like you used to see everywhere so most of them are now loaded with features previously found on luxury cars including 4 doors, sound systems and everything else. Pickup trucks used to be cheap, utilitarian vehicles. These days, it is easy to spend more on one than a BMW or Mercedes sedan.
It is supposedly possible to still buy a 2-door, stripped down, working pickup truck but it isn’t easy. Dealers don’t usually keep them in stock.
You aren’t the first person that has noticed this:
Ahhhhh, answered in one. Thanks.
It’s a terrible trend, too, for people who want a practical working vehicle. It took me six months to find a Tacoma TRD Off-Road 4x4 with the “access cab” (suicide doors to rear area with virtually unusable jump seats that is perfect for dry storage of luggage) versus the crew cab version with a larger but still uncomforable rear seat, poorer visibility, and a toy-sized 5’ length versus the 6’ “long bed” on the access cab configuration. (Don’t get me started on why Toyota elects to make a 4x2 “Off-Road” version of the truck.). The off-road oriented “TRD Pro” model is only crew cab configuration.
Full sized trucks became less popular as SUVs became more popular and people who wanted a truck-like vehicle migrated over to truck-based luxury oriented SUVs, so manufacturers responded by making trucks with luxury and SUV like features. The mid-sized truck market has become dominated by just a couple of makers that many of the manufacturers exited the market completely in the United States; the durable and inexpensive Ford Ranger being one of the major casualties. I suspect most light and medium utility trucks are built and sold as fleet vehicles, so if you want something that is a basic truck you are probably better off going through fleet sales. Although fleet sales are ostensibly supposed to sell in volume to corporate customers they are quite willing to deal with individuals as long as you bring in your own financing or pay cash. A sale is a sale, and they don’t spend as much time trying to upsell you on extended warranties or other niceties.
Stranger
I hate the trend. I prefer standard cab basic pick-ups.
Before a 8ft bed was called a ‘standard bed’ now a ‘standard bed’ is 6’5" A 8ft bed is referred to as a ‘long bed’
On midsize trucks they don’t even make standard cabs anymore.
My personal vehicle is an extended cab 2006 Ranger, At 6’1" A standard cab was a little too cramped. The lack of bed space is frustrating sometimes. 10ft pipe sticks out to far. The Ranger is nearing the end of it’s life and I’m not sure what will replace it. I don’t like any of the midsize pick up options, extended cabs are rare for midsize trucks now. Most of them are super cabs. I’ll probably just go to a sedan or something.
My most recent work truck is a 2015 F-350. It has a standard cab and an 8ft bed. With very few options it cost close to half what people are buying F-150s for. It’s so nice to have that bed space. I’d find the 5’5" beds on the super cabs to be useless.