Pickups today are huge monstrosities but I swear their beds are about as long as the one I had in my 1987 Ranger. When I did get a full sized truck, it had a longer bed because if you can’t carry standard sized plywood, sheetrock, and lumber, I’m not sure I’d want it.
for real. had a friend with a big relatively-new truck with a stubby bed try to have me help him move. I show up with my 2003 ford ranger, made before trucks primarily became male fashion accessories. he’d teased me about it before because it’s apparently a “small truck”. yet somehow barely anything fit in his toy truck and my “small” truck handled his couches and mattresses fine. teased him about his truck in return, used the ol “not the size it’s how you use it” line, and have never heard him talk shit about my little truck again.
Blame CAFE, the EPA (I like most of the EPA), and the Chicken Tax. Those three have basically made it to where the US can’t get the smaller trucks the rest of the world gets, has a fuel economy loop-hole for larger vehicles, and basically makes it incentivized for companies to make boxier, bigger vehicles in order to lower their average fuel economy standards. Most people I talk to want the ford Ranger from the 2000s brought back in size, but we literally cannot. The closest we got was the maverick (still too big comparatively) and that’s because they gave us a hybrid option and based it off the escape.
I’d probably blame regulatory capture as a whole than individual regs and agencies, but I agree. My feeling is that if you’re going to make a fuel efficiency regulation and then allow exceptions, they should be exceptions based on use, not based on class of vehicle. There should probably be additional fees/taxes, maybe applied annually.
Otherwise, yeah, the incentives point in the wrong direction.
I believe both are limited to a “crew cab, standard bed” configuration. A standard bed length being like 5’7” instead of the 6’4” which is the long bed size for 1500 and under and the standard size for 2500s.
I swear their beds are about as long as the one I had in my 1987 Ranger.
So I asked my aunt for help hauling things back and forth to a convention this past spring. She has an enormous Ram pickup, I have a tiny little xB. A lot of the stuff I was bringing was stored in 45 gallon totes, and I knew from past experience that I could fit three in my car with the back seats folded down, and have room for thinner containers on top.
Imagine my surprise when we go to load up the truck and find that it fit the same number of totes in the bed, and they just barely cleared the bed cover. The cavernous back seat helped make up for it thankfully, but I was floored that the cargo areas were comparable.
Pickups today are huge monstrosities but I swear their beds are about as long as the one I had in my 1987 Ranger. When I did get a full sized truck, it had a longer bed because if you can’t carry standard sized plywood, sheetrock, and lumber, I’m not sure I’d want it.
for real. had a friend with a big relatively-new truck with a stubby bed try to have me help him move. I show up with my 2003 ford ranger, made before trucks primarily became male fashion accessories. he’d teased me about it before because it’s apparently a “small truck”. yet somehow barely anything fit in his toy truck and my “small” truck handled his couches and mattresses fine. teased him about his truck in return, used the ol “not the size it’s how you use it” line, and have never heard him talk shit about my little truck again.
Blame CAFE, the EPA (I like most of the EPA), and the Chicken Tax. Those three have basically made it to where the US can’t get the smaller trucks the rest of the world gets, has a fuel economy loop-hole for larger vehicles, and basically makes it incentivized for companies to make boxier, bigger vehicles in order to lower their average fuel economy standards. Most people I talk to want the ford Ranger from the 2000s brought back in size, but we literally cannot. The closest we got was the maverick (still too big comparatively) and that’s because they gave us a hybrid option and based it off the escape.
I’d probably blame regulatory capture as a whole than individual regs and agencies, but I agree. My feeling is that if you’re going to make a fuel efficiency regulation and then allow exceptions, they should be exceptions based on use, not based on class of vehicle. There should probably be additional fees/taxes, maybe applied annually.
Otherwise, yeah, the incentives point in the wrong direction.
I had an Isuzu mini-truck that had nearly the same wheel base as my old mustang. That thing was sweet. I miss mini trucks.
Didn’t the maverick only come in a shortbed? Or was that the lightning?
I believe both are limited to a “crew cab, standard bed” configuration. A standard bed length being like 5’7” instead of the 6’4” which is the long bed size for 1500 and under and the standard size for 2500s.
So I asked my aunt for help hauling things back and forth to a convention this past spring. She has an enormous Ram pickup, I have a tiny little xB. A lot of the stuff I was bringing was stored in 45 gallon totes, and I knew from past experience that I could fit three in my car with the back seats folded down, and have room for thinner containers on top.
Imagine my surprise when we go to load up the truck and find that it fit the same number of totes in the bed, and they just barely cleared the bed cover. The cavernous back seat helped make up for it thankfully, but I was floored that the cargo areas were comparable.
Those Rangers were death traps in anything more than 35mph. But then again most cars back in 87 were. So nevermind. Lol.
Crumple zones? Fuck that! Truck so light I’ll just bounce off the wall.
Haha, even heavy duty cars had terrible crumple zones.