They were fun, dependable, rugged, didnt look like a compact car, and pretty cheap.
This perception was pretty much the killing blow on the Rangers. People expect to pay less for smaller trucks but they aren’t actually that much cheaper to make than full size trucks. A base Tacoma and base Tundra have very similar costs.
Ford was making significantly less profit on Rangers than F-150s, they calculated if they dropped Rangers they’d make up the loss if only a fraction of Ranger buyers bought F-150s instead. They were right, dropping Rangers increased sales on F-150s, which were more profitable.
This.
Which is why no male ever drove one when they were available.
This can’t be true, can it? Surely the majority of pickup trucks in America are fleet vehicles and work trucks, I’d think? But even of the ones that aren’t, I see things being hauled in the bed regularly.
It’s true though that 2-seat vehicles are on the decline. The true sports roadster is basically a unicorn in America (don’t know about Europe) and I virtually never see single-cab pickups other than as dedicated work trucks, usually for hauling specialty beds designed for a particular job. Even many of the big ass F-650 type heavy-duty trucks seem to have crew cabs.
I spent many months riding around in old single-cab work trucks on various summer jobs back in high school and college, and there’s definitely a certain nostalgia to riding in one, with one long bench seat, speakers directly behind your head, maybe a cigarette and a large unhealthy soda for sustenance, and the knowledge that you’re a righteous working dude and not some lazy ass desk jockey.
The bigger thing is that gas has stayed relatively cheap in this country, so gassing up an F-150 isn’t ruinous.
Also that full size pickups have become way plusher and easier to live with as an only vehicle. Back up to the ‘90s, the top trim level on e.g. an F-150 was the XLT Lariat, which basically got you power windows/locks and available two tone paint. There also was no crew cab; the extended cab didn’t even have rear half doors. There certainly weren’t any King Ranch, Limited, or Platinum trims loaded up with leather seating and all of the tech toys.
The original Caravan came out in 1984, not 1991. It rode on a 115” wheelbase and weighed 2910 pounds. The current Caravan has a 121” wheelbase, and weighs 4306 pounds.
Just a WAG, but one cause may be that pickups have become the second car in a family – and thus need seating for four. Adding the additional seats (and belts, and airbags, etc.) likely would push the weight of the small pickups beyond their maximum capacity (GVWR).
Until last year, I had a full-sized Dodge 1500 quad-cab. It’s empty weight was 5800 lbs. It’s max weight (GVWR) was 6700 lbs. This left a remaining load capacity of 900 lbs. – exactly the same as my wife’s Camry. Add 4 people and luggage and it’s likely there’s no capacity left. My guess is that 2-seat 1/4 ton pickups wouldn’t sell well, and a 4-seater would have such limited capacity they’d be rendered useless.
The Ridgeline is classified as a half ton pickup. It weighs as much as many heavier pickups too, mine weighs in at about 4200 pounds empty. My old 93 Toyota extended cab pickup weighed only 2800 pounds and that included a fiberglass canopy.
This is a lot of it. The biggest reason you hear is “cheap gas,” but that’s only a part.
It’s luxury coupled with utilitarianism; that is, the marketers decided to turn the work truck into the family all-in-one (I’m sure huge profits entered into that decision), and people bought into the mentality.
A lot of it is of course image (again, thanks to the marketers). Every Jeep, pickup, and SUV ad shows the vehicle going offroad in an almost Dakar Rally way. The vast majority of consumers use their “offroad” vehicles as daily grocery getters, and never really get off the pavement. (I’m not saying all, because there are construction trucks, farm trucks, etc., but the average American consumer has no intention of dirtying up their truck any more than they have to. It’s about image, not practicality. Why else buy an $80,000 Escalade, or even a Bentley Bentayga, at a cool $229,000?
A final reason no one mentions is the weight of Americans. I have a theory that Americans love bigger trucks is because of our weight.
So it comes down to a variety of factors:
- Cheap gas
- Marketing the macho image (and paradoxically, more luxury–imagine that: soft machismo)
- Americans are getting fatter
And we can’t forget 4) current style (station wagons were once emblematic of the American family)
Were there really many(any?) quarter-ton trucks per the OP? All of the small Datsun/Toyota type trucks I was familiar with back in the 70s, '80s and 90’s were half-ton, and I was around a lot of construction sites and knew many of their owners back then. I owned a 1985 Mitsubishi Might Max that was 3/4 ton and, IIRC, if you looked at the GVWR the payload was really 1850 lbs.
All that aside, I think the CAFE requirements really did them in for all the reasons already stated. Making the trucks bigger and with more bells and whistles, they are more attractive to most customers without having to be super fuel-efficient.
I directly challenge and defy your stereotype.
I drove a chevy s10, the most basic trimline you could get too, for twelve years. I loved that truck. Never once had a problem other than a worn out fuel cap.
I’ve been waiting with fear and excitement for the inevitable reintroduction of the small truck here in the states. Excitement because I knew as soon as the end of the small truck manufacturing was announced it was inevitable that it would be back and fear because I’m pretty certain a great deal of the utility of the small truck will be done away with through “improvements”
the “*x-*ton” thing is obsolete anyway. The official way is to sort them by FHA Class.
edited to add:
I think Drunky Smurf was being sarcastic. the person that was a reply to tends to come up with some real gems when the subject is cars/trucks.
Same here.
I’m still driving my 19 year old Ford Ranger (extended cab with “suicide doors” and fold down back seats that I can squeeze into but the average size man can’t) and I love that truck. The sound system was nice, but I haven’t bothered to fix the CD player or clock (taken out by a lightning strike) and the cruise control seems to be iffy so I’ve just stopped using it entirely (my husband was actually the heavy user of cruise control). Yes, most of the time it’s a second car (with a really, really big “trunk”) but I have used it for occasional light hauling. It is basically a two-seat car. A small adult or a child can fit in the back, as I said, but most of the time half of the behind-the-seat area is taken up with emergency gear or tools (currently, new truck battery I’ve yet to install, jumper cables, tire inflater, spare wiper blades, gallon of windshield washer fluid, first aid kit, several sturdy canvas bags, plastic bags, a tarp, bungees, 100 feet of rope, fire extinguisher, tool kit, flashlights, umbrella, spare socks, spare gloves, snow brush, squeegee, ice scraper, paper towels, hacksaw, and probably some other stuff - I really need to do some spring cleaning and re-organizing)
But I’d dread replacing it with something full of electronics like touchscreens and other gizmos that, to my mind, are secondary to actually driving a vehicle. A back-up camera might be nice but, really, I have a good view out the back, better than many newer cars and SUV’s. We did get better mirrors for each side which are a must for those times the bed is full up to the cab roof height, which seems to me a much better use of funds than some in-cab electronic gizmo. Frankly, I find the power locks and windows and extravagance, but I admit to old-school tendencies (my car has crank windows and non-power locks).
No, it’s not true, he’s just taking a dig at truck owners. :rolleyes:Altho, in the case of those oversized jacked up trucks, he may have a point. 
In Canada truck sales have exploded - something like 60% of new sales. I don’t consider myself “a truck guy”, but I bought a Honda Ridgeline and like everything about it.
Peoplw who claim that trucks are just useless macho toys are probably biased in that they live in a city, so only see the trucks that city dwellers buy.
Go out to farm country where all the trucks are, and you’ll see the reasons why trucks have evolved the way they have, and why they are still so popular.
The ‘standard’ truck used to be a 3 person, bench seated, 1/2 ton pickup. For 90% of its time it probably had one person in it. But as family farms have been upgraded or replaced with larger farming operations, more jobs require multiple people and/or larger hauling requirements.
When I worked on a small farm in the 70’s, I drove a '67 Chevy half-ton with a three-on-the-tree manual transmission. It had an AM/FM radio and a heater. The bed was used for hauling hay that you would pitchfork in and out yourself, or maybe a load of gravel to fill something, or manure for fertilizing or we would put box railings and walls and haul pigs or something. All work that can be done with a small truck and one or two people.
Today, those same activities occur, but on a larger scale and often with a crew of 3-4 people. Machine loading means you can handle more material, etc. And then people found that with a crew cab and modern conveniences, the truck makes a nice people hauler, and a bigger truck can haul a nice sized trailer. Also, improvements in fuel economy work to make trucks larger as well.
Yes, the familiar compact pick-ups like the S10 and Ranger were small half-ton types (as mentioned, it was not really a reflection of true capacity). Quarter-ton would be things like an IH Scout or Jeep CJ where your cargo space was achieved by not bolting in a rear seat.
And as the linked article explained, the CAFE standards as they have been applied in the US have the effect of disincentivizing truly light pickups because of how the classes of vehicle are defined for CAFE purposes; tie that with how the larger vehicles yield better margins for the carmakers, and it’s advantageous to sell them “with more bells and whistles” so that they can be daily family rides instead of just for the farm or worksite. As Broomstick points out, it is unlikely the market would support bringing back the sort of no-nonsense utilitarian vehicle they used to be.
Ah, well if that’s the case then I will have to amend my statement somewhat…
in some manly fashion that escapes me at the moment…
I keep seeing references to the ridgeline, wasn’t that the “truck” that was a really a unibody car? The one that you couldn’t really put much of a load of anything in the back, because it flexed the body just enough when you did, that you couldn’t close the doors?
I don’t recall it being that flexy. most of the criticism against it was that it looked like a Pilot with the rear part of the roof notched out. which is more or less what it was.
The new Ridgeline (2018+) while still unibody is a bit more “trucky” looking and has been much better received. plus it has some pretty nifty features in the cargo bed.
unibody isn’t really a big disadvantage for a class 1 truck. The old Jeep Comanche was unibody as well.
Hah, that reminds me of the Fly Fishing Bentley that I once saw someone post about on FB. I joked that if I had one, I’d put a “Salt Life” sticker on the back. (A popular sticker among…well, I’ll just call them the “frat guys of fishing”, the offshore saltwater Gulf Coast party boat crowd. Beer, music, large groups, and wild fights with gigantic fish on heavy-ass rigs.) Serious fly fisherman would consider it slumming, hence the joke. You have to be a fishing geek to really get it.