When our own David Tracy writes his op-ed pieces each week, the goal is never to create Jerry Springer-like turmoil amongst Autopians. Of course, it’s not like an online melee is ever going to erupt; our readers and commenters have to be some of the most polite and respectful among the entire internet. I read the all-caps insults on other sites and wonder what the hell is wrong with them; our standards are such that this kind of rude behavior will return you to pre-membership or ghost comment status.
Still, David does stir up some shit, does he not?
Last week’s post defending super-luxury trucks caused a rather intense 300 comment discourse on whether or not trucks with heated seats, power adjustable steering columns and twenty speaker “premium audio” are A Bad Thing:
Some commenters agreed with David’s let-bygones-be-bygones approach to the subject. Others were rather up in arms: this is a TRUCK, dammit! They cried out that not only are fancy pants pickups silly but they’re an affront to the symbol of hard work and productivity! In their opinion, it’s the equivalent of taking an (Anglo) American icon like a Shelby Cobra, painting it brown, and putting a 5.7 liter GM diesel in it with a three-speed automatic (actually, that sounds interesting…no, it doesn’t).
However, in dissecting these comments, it turns out that many readers might have missed David’s original point, or at least used the opportunity to belabor a different but common sticking point: trucks are too big.
Indeed, it seems like most of the ultra-luxury King Ranch/Harley Davidson Special Edition type glitzy trucks are in fact of the full-sized variety. So that’s what is pushing the buttons of people? Well, now we’re onto a totally different issue. If we could disassociate the “luxury” and “big” aspects of these things, would that help? Some people seem to think so:
So maybe a smaller or compact luxury truck could be the answer? What about a cushy something that isn’t a “King Ranch” but instead is, I don’t know, a “King Good-Sized Back Yard”? I’d say let’s take it a step further and not just add bells and whistles to a small pickup: have this smaller truck be sold under a luxury brand in the same way that a Cadillac Escalade or Lincoln Navigator SUV are. This idea seems to make a lot of sense, though as always there are detractors there as well:
Look, I get what the reader is saying about the Cimarron, the barely disguised Chevrolet Cavalier that Cadillac tried to pass off as a BMW competitor forty years ago. I can understand the sentiment, but we’ve come a long way since then. Honestly, I think that approach of today might be the answer here. Let’s at least give it a try.
Trading In Your Chevy For A Cadillac-ac-ac-ac-ac
That fact is that almost the entire model lineup of brands like Infiniti and Lexus is comprised of these “leveled up” lower-tier-brand cars and SUVs. Back in 1998, Toyota took the platform that what was to become the popular Highlander and gussied it up with Alteeza taillights and dashboard trim from the same suppliers that made the wood for Yamaha violins to create the Lexus RX300; it’s been a sales success from day one.
Why do people want these dressed-up things? Do they care about a badge and a fancier interior compared to just getting a fully loaded version of the Toyota car this Lexus is based on? Yes, they do, and honestly there’s nothing wrong with that at all. If you enjoy the extra niceties, slightly better refinement, and the posh nametag, there’s no reason to feel embarrassed that this makes you feel somehow more special than if you were driving something of a more working-class brand. Cars are just steel, plastic, and rubber, and the way they play with buyers’ emotions has little to do with the shared floorpans or the greasy bits underneath.
There’s another advantage to these up-branded things besides vestigial prestige if you’re buying a new or relatively late model example – the dealership. David recently wrote about his Lexus service experience and I certainly concur with his findings. He mentioned that people actually enjoyed going to the dealer, which is something that sadly many owners of more affordable branded cars cannot say. A friend of mine took his Toyota in for an oil change, and the dealer never checked records and replaced the timing belt on his car when they had already done that work only about seven thousand miles earlier. This is the same Toyota dealer that many years ago “lost” our Celica for nearly an hour when we went to pick it up after service; suffice it to say they didn’t make breakfast for us while we waited as they might do at a Lexus dealership. I’m not singling these guys out, since I’ve personally experienced that same thing when getting work done at a Ford dealership versus a Lincoln-Mercury store (yes, that’s what it was called then since I’m old – it’s not like I’m talking about a Packard franchise, geez). You’ll pay dearly for such a level of treatment but it’s a price many customers are willing to shell out the money.
What would be the best thing to use as a basis for a small luxury truck? On Slack, we discussed this and the answer seemed to be pretty obvious. With 94,000 units in sales last year, the compact Ford Maverick pickup is the best-selling hybrid pickup on the market, and sales were up 98 percent in the month of January. It’s an unqualified smash.
The Maverick is based on the Ford Escape and Bronco Sport, an SUV that Lincoln offers a luxury version of as the Corsair. Could it be as easy as making a pickup version of Lincoln’s small dressed-up ute?
Think Blackwood But Smaller And Not Stupid
Lincolnizing the Maverick is so simple that you wonder why nobody has done it yet (or there isn’t something like a Genesis Santa Cruz). Here’s the Lincoln Sceptre concept (like Interceptor, the famous Panther body police car) below the light grey Ford Maverick; at the bottom is the Lincoln Corsair on which the Sceptre is based so you can see where the wheelbase, length, and rear overhang were added.
The biggest challenge with the conversion seems to be the back of the cab. The Maverick chops the back straight like an F-150 but to follow the Lincoln brand language I don’t see that as an answer. However, we don’t want a sloping backlight to kill the bed space. The solution is to incorporate “sail” panels as on an old El Camino (or the Santa Cruz) to carry the line down but keep an upright rear window. This will give us all of the space you’d find in the lower market Maverick (I did change the grille slightly to give a different identity from the Corsair.
Since the Sceptre is a luxury truck, I don’t see nattily-clad people folding down the tailgate to put items in the bed, which would typically be enclosed by the rollaway cover on top. It’s a pain to reach into the truck bed with the folded tailgate blocking your reach. To solve this, I’d like to bring back the old Ford gadget of the two-way “magic” tailgate that can open sideways like a door or down like a traditional gate. This gives you the flexibility of doing either Real Truck Things or Luxury Car Tasks. You can roll back the cargo cover, fold the tailgate down for a football parking lot party, or add an extender “cage” to the opened tailgate to increase your cargo space and carry even more bags of mulch and topsoil. After that, you can hose out the bed, let it dry, close the cargo cover and then open the tailgate like a regular door and put in your bags from Whole Foods and the Lululemon store as if it were a car trunk.
No Survival Of The Thickest
Regardless of your thoughts, it seems like fancy pickup are here to stay. On Slack, some of the staff equated these giant gilded work machines as the modern equivalent of seventies personal luxury coupes with two painfully long doors; vehicles with a style that people have latched on to regardless of the fact that they don’t make practical sense for daily use. Like the dinosaurs, they eventually die out. Ah, but what happened in the eighties? Those Chevy Monte Carlos and Pontiac Grand Prix transmogrified into smaller, sportier coupes like the Honda Prelude, Toyota Celica, Chevy Beretta and Mitsubishi Eclipse that flourished on the market.
If the little Maverick is finding a market niche, it’s only a matter of time before that market moves to small trucks for the higher rent districts. Many of us are ready for these products that won’t blind you with their headlamps at night and take up two spaces in the Walgreens parking lot. We’ll need to find something else to hate.
A Pickup That Turns Into An SUV Via Your Phone: Our Daydreaming Designer Imagines How – The Autopian
When it comes to truck size, America is Professor Peach from the “Italian Job.”
Hibux Lux Trux Run Amux. Nerves strux. Crux in flux. They sux. They’re for schmux. Or they’re great for yux. I say shux and give it no fux.
We just want a Hilux
It never gets stux!
I’d kind of forgotten about the Corsair… How garbage/not garbage are the current crop of small fords? A posh Maverick with the hotter plugin/awd setup out of the corsair sounds like exactly the car I want. I’d rather have it for Ford money (mid 40s?) but mid 50’s for a Lincoln version would probably get me in the door.
The PHEV version of the Corsair is the slowest of the available drivetrains, and pushing $60k
Sure, but compared to the hybrid Mav it’s quite bit hotter (I think? can’t find specs) and awd which makes it a pretty solid fit for my wants. Would prefer it as a ford, but would be willing to spend the additional $$ if Lincoln was the only way to get it. Top trim corsair with the hybrid/awd setup starts at 54k, didn’t bother to scan through options, but I imagine it wouldn’t be hard to cross the 60k mark.
If the maverick interior wasn’t Cozy Coupe level of refinement, I’d take it as the ideal luxury lifestyle thing.
If the topic is TRUCK, I’d take a well appointed Ranger (King Ranger trim, maybe?!?)
I like the Blackwood more than I should 😐
anyway, I agree, these big trucks are stupid. They’re also a product of stupid protectionist shit like the chicken tax, different-but-not-better standards (FMVSS vs UNECE), CAFE loopholes, etc.
The Ranger should be renamed F150, for example.
Im not sure i love the fact taht rage baiting has taken hold here. Yet I can’t help myself from posting so I guess I’m part of the problem.
Of course you know that the Maverick is a hit because of the value it provided not it’s size. It success is a function of its value vs cost.
You also know that nobody gives a shit about dealers even so called premium dealership experiences. The best dealership experience is the one were you never have to step foot in a dealership.
Whoa, that looks good. I never disliked the look of the Maverick, but I also never liked it either.
Also, if a truck’s main purpose is towing, I think you should get the fancy pants interior. If it’s for doing other truck stuff like hauling gravel, no. If it’s for a daily commute, why are you driving a truck?
IDK but I suspect “hauling” is as big or equal of a pickup trucks appeal as towing. I had a neighbor that used to tow his boat with an oldsmobile.
I need a vehicle to commute. I need a vehicle to haul mulch and other stuff from the home store. I don’t need two vehicles. Yes, a minivan would be great, but have you seen what they cost? The Ford Maverick hybrid was the appropriate choice for me at $27K out the door with options including towing package, heated seats and steering wheel and auto-dimming mirrors.
I drive a Hyundai Santa Cruz. It’s all the truck I need, and it’s small enough to fit in my garage. Even a Maverick would be a tight fit. (Not sure how everything is bigger in Texas except garages, but I digress.)
Mine is the mid-level “Night Edition” and has a decent amount of tech, but not all the goodies. Interior is good quality for the price range and intended purpose of the vehicle, but I wouldn’t call it luxurious in any way. it’s comfy enough. And again, it meets my needs.
The drivetrain is properly quick, but it’s a 4-banger and sometimes exhibits some of the less desirable traits (NVH) of that.
I’m not disappointed in any way with my Santa Cruz, but if Hyundai offered a Genesis version with a twin turbo V6 and some more luxurious bits, I’d be all over it.
I second the call for Bishop to photoshop up a Genesis based on the Santa Cruz platform.
I was just discussing the garage thing with my brother in law the other day. Basically, marketing the size of garages is based solely on the width of the door, and hasn’t changed since the 60’s.
The 2-car garage on my 2005 built home is BARELY long enough for me to fit my Mustang. I suppose technically I could also park my Niro next to it, but that would require removing ALL of the shelving and the chest freezer, which aren’t that big to begin with. Even at that, opening the doors would be a TIGHT squeeze. So instead I opt to have the storage space, and the little bit of extra space left hosts a treadmill and a small weight bench.
The house I grew up in (Built in the late 60’s) had exactly the same width door, but the garage’s interior was a bit wider and MUCH longer. We were easily able to fit both our ’92 Pontiac and ’82 Subaru in with room to comfortably open all doors, even with massive workbenches and storage shelves lining the entire garage.
It would be nice if the definitions were updated to be a few inches wider of a door (per car) and have an actual minimum usable depth and width requirement. But it’ll never happen because you can’t really stick a true 2 car garage on a postage stamp lot without adding a 3rd story. Or in a planned townhouse development without reducing the number of units you build/.
I don’t have any problem with luxury trucks, though I wouldn’t recognize prestige (or probably luxury) if it bit me in the ass. A lot of them are kinda ugly, but those of us who drive Souls aren’t allowed to say anything about that. The cargo space is nice. Just make them meet the same CAFE and safety standards (including pedestrian safety!) as cars.
My wife’s Kia Soul is a 2020 GT-Line turbo and I wouldn’t call it a luxury vehicle in any way, but it’s really well appointed. Heads up display and plenty of tech. Stereo makes nice noises and the interior is not a penalty box.
Sure, all that stuff I guess (mine’s the 2015 base model loved by car thieves, I remove the fuel pump fuse when parking overnight). But I was talking exterior aesthetics, and I’ll stand by “ugly” there. No offense intended to people who think it’s beautiful. I really like the car aside from those things.
Yeah, I’m starting to get a bit frustrated that a website predicated on “preserving car culture” is normalizing shitty automaker end-arounds. The end of car culture isn’t electric powertrains or needing software updates, it’s the Wall-E-ification of vehicles into monstrous barges that simply have to be automated in order to protect humans from their own worst tendencies.
Conversely, it’s very frustrating to find so many people on what is ostensibly a broad-based enthusiast site trashing the vehicular preferences of other enthusiasts.
I’d offer a safe space, but evidently large truck and SUV owners would want an opt-out for that as well.
I love the classic tailgates that can open down or to side. they are amazing. (Honda Ridgeline does this, or did it anyway) but I wonder if in this instance, something more like the upmarket Ram tailgate would be better. Somehow, the split tailgate feels more “upmarket” than the one long “door” of a tailgate. And lets you get in it easier if you are parallel parked or backed in to a stall.
I have a Ridgeline (the dual action tailgate is still a thing) and it’s a difficult thing to make feel premium. By nature, it can’t be soft close/strut assisted, which is something luxury truck owners have come to expect. I think that’s one of the reasons the Big 3 have all those really complicated tailgate setups instead of going with the old school option.
I’m jealous, mine (’19) has never worked properly.
Clearly, the world beckons for the luxury Subaru Baja.
Better yet, the Subaru Brat.
Just imagine: Leather seats in the bed.
I have ridden in the back of a Brat in Florida. I can attest that they are already both heated and vibrating!
What does the word “luxury” even mean nowadays? In the 50s and 60s (Cadillac) and 70s and 80s (Mercedes), “luxury” meant you got a better-built car. Mostly now it means you just get more toys.
Luxury means a smoother, quieter ride, nicer interior materials and finishes, more comfortable seats (especially rear seats), more thoughtful options. Spend 2 minutes sitting in the driver’s seat of an Accord v. a 7-series if you want to experience the difference.
Or in the seats of a Platinum and XL F150.
You left out the biggest problem for many of us. The takeover of trucks and SUVs has a high societal cost in that pedestrian and cyclist death rates are rising in spite of technology that should be lowering them. You can’t beat the physics: Force delivered to the torso and head is more likely to kill someone than that same force if delivered to the legs. The higher strike point also increases the risk of the person going under the vehicle. Giant luxury trucks are the most visible symbol of this trend.
Vehicles are expensive AF, and there is something to be said for buying one vehicle that can do most things at least reasonably well. I completely understand why someone would buy a truck that also is practical and comfortable enough to handle daily driving. I also can’t ignore that this trend has consequences for the safety of everyone not sitting in a large truck or SUV.
And the downward spiral arms race it’s provoking.
Relatives have kids who’ll be driving soon, and overheard this: “well, she’s not the best driver so far, but I want her to have something big enough to protect her, I mean with all the other big stuff on the roads.”
Yes, my friends are equipping their incompetent progeny with the biggest SUVs so they “will be safe”. I haven’t had the audacity to ask them, “what about the other people?”.
I understand that temptation as a parent. We expect that our daughter’s first car will be my wife’s Accord, and by everything we’ve seen it will make for a very good first car. It would also put her at a disadvantage compared to the taller and heavier vehicles out there. It seems odd to think of a 3300 pound large sedan as being overly vulnerable in a crash, but here we are.
Insurance companies are nothing if not greedy. Assuming they’re the ones paying out for the death and destruction wrought by oversize vehicles, insuring said vehicles would/does price that risk into the premiums.
As a biker in a rural area with lots of trucks, and a scooter (300cc) rider, and a driver of a car that is far far smaller than the large trucks, I have to agree on the factor of safety. I would suggest that the issue is not just the size, but also the power. In Europe, you get taxed based on your power output – there are a ton of slow vans and slow cars and speed limits accommodate this. The US went power hungry as the engines got all that power, and the silly CAFE rules and heavy truck rules only make it worse. The right path out of the malaise era was to keep the cars a little slower, but a lot more efficient. Ah well.
Love the idea of taxes based on power output. And before anyone falsely accuses me of being an econobox driver, my daily has 333 hp, so I’d be paying up some.
I think the issue is margins.
Let’s say “luxury” additions actually cost an additional $5,000 On a full size truck – they can charge $10,000 and the price only goes up from 65k to 75k. Nice 5k margin, 15% price bump, consumers will do that.
Those additions would cost basically the same on a mid-size truck. Nearly the same seats and tech, etc. BUT, they can’t raise the price from $35k up to $45k. that’s a nearly 30% increase and nobody is gunna pay that. So, they’re stuck either taking a smaller margin to make it a more reasonable price increase … or keeping “luxury” in the high margin full-size lineup.
I’m not a luxury kind of guy so it doesn’t matter to me either way.
On another note. I saw a black Maverick that must have been lowered a little (just a little), had some sporty body additions like a little lip spoiler on the tailgate and that thing looked pretty cool.
It was such a breath of fresh air compared to the super macho angry bro truck craze I see everywhere else. I actually followed it for a while just to admire it.
So long as you brand it differently, it won’t occur to people that it’s just a duded-up lower-end vehicle. Especially the ones who are after prestige. We know here, but most people don’t notice that a Lexus is just a fancy trim level of Toyota. Not only Toyota, but the Big 3 do that.
Yeah, but Lexus has different bodies altogether. So that’s not only branding but they look remarkably different and have a completely different sales experience… which just adds more to cost. If you talking about brand proliferation…
Ford Tried to use a different brand (Lincoln) with their blackwood and people were like WTF, nope. Gm did the same with the Cadillac version of the avalanche. And it was mostly thanks, but no thanks. It seems that truck people (even luxury truck people) are more interested in the Ford and Chevy/GMC truck brands. I don’t get the feeling it would work like it does with other platforms.
If you roll up to the job site in an F-150 you’re someone driving a truck, be it a King Snake Ranch or XL pleb edition.
If you roll up in a Cadillac you’re an asshole.
Exactly, there’s a deniability in the excess when it’s “just an F150”. Even if it does cost $75k.
This is a good exercise, though I think rather than moving the luxury models down a size category, most people’s (including mine) issue is that every truck size category is 2 categories bigger than it used to be. A Ranger now has noticeable overlap (depending on cab type, options etc) with a 2000 F250, and a fully-optioned new Ranger meets the weight and height of an entry-level F350 from the turn of the century, despite the fact it’s still a 1/2 ton. What we need is to bring each category back down to a reasonable size. Basically, introducing a smaller luxury truck won’t fix anything, the only solution to the problem is to cut down the size of the largest offerings.
I got passed by a lifted Colorado yesterday and I had to do a double take because when it passed, my brain filed it as a full size truck, but it looked wrong for any full size trucks. Looking at it going by I realized that I used to say Colorado’s are 7/8 trucks, compared to full size trucks. But I realized what you stated here. Colorado’s are 8/8 trucks from the 90’s or 00’s. Its just that now full size trucks are 10/8 or 12/8 of a truck.
yeah, i drive a Colorado now and it’s really similar in size to the 90s Silverado I drove awhile back (maybe a smidge narrower). Actually. I think the bedsides are higher on the Colorado which kinda sucks for bed access.
It’s easy to make them look even bigger. With lifts, tires, and fender flairs.
Yeah, that is what I was passed by. Big lift, big tires, some kind of black flare, but I wouldn’t know if they were factory or not. It was a really nice blue though. GM often has really nice blues especially, but some deep reds too.
thanks for responding, its always cool to hear from the people who actually own the stuff we are talking about.
The Toyota Tundra/Tacoma size increase really strikes me as I had a 2004 Tundra that is now the same size/smaller than a new 2024 Taco.
For sure, the new Tacos look Tundra-sized right up until a new Tundra pulls up alongside.
The early Tundras are a hot commodity right now because they drive nice, they are “right-sized”, Tacos are so expensive, and the 4.7 V8 is a great engine.
I understand that. It’s the only vehicle I deeply regret selling. Easy to work on, great engine, drove like a dream, and I had the extended (“access”) cab model so the bed space was sufficient for hauling.
I mean, look at the old Ranger compared to new or the old S-10 compared to the Colorado. They really are different trucks now compared to then.
I don’t recall ever seeing an internet person get mad that a truck had luxury features. That’s not the argument. Nobody cares that you can get an F250 with massaging seats. I think what most people get upset about is the fact that some F250’s rarely, if ever, do Truck Stuff. Trucks spending their entire leases doing nothing but going to the mall, elementary school dropoff lines, Walmart, etc. is what gets under people’s skin.
I rode in a Raptor the other day and it’s safe to say I was not converted. I have no desire to daily something like that. Other people love them though. Different priorities, for sure.
There’s definitely a perception that a luxury truck is somehow less suited for work or less “authentic” than a bare-bones one, and that feeds directly into the majority of your comment.
If commenters see a Platinum F250 driving without a load or a trailer they assume its a mall-crawler, never mind how much towing the owner might do on the weekends.
If they see a base model 2WD regular cab driving around without a trailer they assume the guy is on his lunch break from landscaping or something, regardless of whether that’s true.
Plus online car people love base model versions of anything, love small vehicles, hate electronic gadgets, and buy everything used. A brand new leather-lined $80,000 pickup may as well have been cooked up in a lab to annoy them.
THEY WERE! 😉
I’d also posit that people perceive the pickup that isn’t doing work as a luxury trim whether or not it’s true. That pristine F150 XLT that’s just a commuter vehicle? I’m guessing some people remember it as a Lariat or King Ranch because that’s what they expect.
In my experience, the people buying a truck they aren’t getting much use out of tend to go for the off-road trims. They tend to project the most “cool factor” for a pickup buyer while also tending to be the least appropriate pickup for towing and using the bed.
(I don’t think that most pickup buyers are buying just for the appearance, though it is certainly a factor–they think they’ll start doing the things they buy it for, but then don’t end up doing it for a number of reasons. Campers are expensive, off-roading your daily driver isn’t a great idea, and home renovations are a lot of work, among other things.)
The guy hauling 5 cars up and down the coast in a dually w/ a gooseneck has just as much right to ventilated, massaging seats and radar cruise control as the guy in the S500.
There sure are a lot of big trucks here in FL that have suspiciously pristine hitches and cargo areas (excluding the beer cans/polar pops), though.
Why doesn’t the guy who buys a truck to go to Walmart and the school dropoff line because he likes how it drives vs an S500 also deserve those things?
The societal problems associated with full size trucks, such as how “normal” cars hold up in accidents with them, and pedestrian and cyclist deaths, are well documented, and don’t apply to cars such as the S500. One can argue that lots of cars, especially sports cars, aren’t used to even 1/10th of their capability on a daily basis, but those cars just don’t have the same problems as trucks. If two Vipers parked on each side of me in a parking lot, I could see around them to back out. Vipers don’t blind me at night driving toward me or behind me. You can see a child standing in front of a Viper, even if it’s so close it’s touching the bumper. If a Viper t-bones a Camry, the Viper would not do the same damage as an F250.There’s no getting around some of that unless you also have a truck, which kinda sucks for people that don’t want trucks.
People who use arguments like this make me wonder if they’ve ever shared a road with a commercial vehicle.
Even when I’m driving my Viper, which I venture to say is lower to the ground and harder to see out of than most people’s cars, I can’t say privately owned pickups cause me any real amount of grief. And I live in a place with a lot of them.
My brother in Christ you are making my point by comparing them to commercial vehicles.
I’m saying whining about someone driving an F150 to Walmart instead of a Camry makes zero sense when the road is already filled with box trucks and semis.
We are both frequent commenters on this site and I truly enjoy most of your insight, but we are not aligned here. Agree to disagree.
That’s fair
I don’t disagree with your original point but excuse me for taking issue with something you said…
CDL drivers are required to pass more rigorous tests, including drug tests, and can lose their license even more easily. And commercial trucks are subject to more stringent inspection and registration.
Also, those trucks are a necessary evil used for the betterment of society and keeping us operating as a country.
So it’s a bit of a false equivalency.
I also think people are a little more tolerant when the truck is hauling milk so people don’t starve.
I’m not interested in outlawing pickup trucks, but still think that their proliferation is a little ridiculous and in some ways dangerous. I also feel the same way about hellcats and 500+Hp cars. I don’t necessarily fault the individuals but can’t help but think that we, as a society, took a wrong turn somewhere.
Hellcats and the like are crazy, but what’s even crazier is fast electric cars. A MX Plaid weighs as much as a pickup truck and has 1,000HP.
I used to think that the extreme acceleration was a necessary evil as well. Getting people interested in EVs by making them somehow exciting. But now I think it’s unnecessary and a little reckless even.
But it’s not like musk to care much about how others are affected. He doesn’t mind cracking some other people’s eggs to make his omelet.
No one is saying we should ban Peter from accounting from driving his F-150 King Ranch when the extent of his ‘truck stuff’ is hauling a couple bags of mulch each Spring. But we have to acknowledge that choosing a luxury truck when a luxury car would have done the job just as well creates additional societal costs without providing any additional value in turn.
The value provided is allowing everyone to drive what they choose without shame or judgement.
Of all people, I’d think the readers and commenters on sites like this would see the *most* value in upholding that lofty ideal, but instead I’m repeatedly and continually disappointed by their gatekeeping of “car enthusiasm”.
I’m glad you’re here. I like the articles, but the comment section is a terrible example of what a typical enthusiast forum could be.
This isn’t some urbanism site where we’re all saying you need a written justification from the local DOT board to drive anything bigger than a Fit. But if someone’s driving something that inconveniences people around them, poses a greater safety risk, damages the roads more, and causes more emissions, just because they think it’s cool – that should be acknowledged. I’m allowed to think they’re a prick and maybe suggest some things that could mitigate their cost to people around them.
As long as you aren’t looking for sympathy when the heavy hand of judgement comes for something you like to drive too.
As a thought exercise:
There’s no reason other than “thinking it’s cool” that anyone needs a car with more than 100 hp. Anything with more power wastes gas, can go dangerously fast, is more prone to reckless operation, etc. Surely “suggesting” some things that could mitigate those costs would benefit society, no?
There’s a few flaws with your thought exercise:
Drive what you want regardless of any bona fide ‘need’. But if you want to drive a big truck just because you like big trucks, be prepared to pay the cost to be the boss. Otherwise, you’re asking everyone else to subsidize your choices and assume more risk on your behalf.
I already pay the cost. I accept 11 mpg and higher registration fees as paying to play. I’m on record here saying I support a much higher gas tax to fund green energy and infrastructure improvements. If gas were $10/gallon, I’d still drive a truck.
What does bother me is gatekeeping and “eat your own” among car enthusiasts. The world at large already looks down on our hobby. The last thing we need is division amongst ourselves and turning more people away simply because their enthusiasm takes a different shape than the consensus.
I fail to see where this gatekeeping is coming from – at least from what I’ve been saying. The argument isn’t that you’re not a real enthusiast because you’re passionate about your big truck and not a brown diesel wagon. The argument is that, driving a larger and heavier vehicle places more of a burden on other people. If you’re personally driving an F-250 because that suits your needs and you like it, more power to you. Especially if you’re willing to accept the higher regulatory costs associated with that (note that few states have registration costs that accurately account for real costs and fuel taxes do little on this front, either).
What is bothersome, though, is when a half ton truck gets treated like a regular car. Registration might only be a few dollars more even though the half ton will cause 16x more road wear. They require the same licensing despite the fact the truck is 45% more likely to kill a pedestrian at regular city speeds.
I’m all for solidarity among car enthusiasts. I support people’s right to drive whatever makes them happy. But blindly screaming “personal choice” in response to valid criticisms makes us all look bad.
When comment sections are full of “brodozer” and “small dick” comments on every truck article, it doesn’t stretch the imagination to think potential members of the community would be turned off by that.
Ultimately every one of us driving something with more power or fuel consumption than a Prius is imposing societal costs on everyone else. Everyone driving a 5000 lb EV is causing more damage in a crash and deteriorating the roads vs said Prius. If we make it our job to police everyone’s societal impact, the endgame will be the Prius is all we get to drive.
Literally every subculture gets lambasted by the general public and others within car culture. Is it nice and inclusive? No. But it’s hardly something where truck drivers are being uniquely targeted.
That’s a logical fallacy. Again – outside the extreme urbanists – few are asking for something more than paying a fair share. It doesn’t matter if it’s a 5000 lb EV sedan or a 5000 lb half ton truck, registration costs should reflect the wear (aka usage) to shared infrastructure. Pedestrian safety standards should exist. Licensing should acknowledge the added safety concerns of larger vehicles. Asking someone to assume a degree of personal responsibility commensurate to their choices is not an unreasonable position.
So again, to solve so many of these serious problems, Miata is, once again, the answer.
Dude you are poking V10omous’s sore spot
4 arguments against driving current full size ‘light trucks’ as grocery getters…
Even noting below I do think everyone should drive what they want and at the same time realizing at least in the US the licensing and tax laws seem wildly out of step with “light trucks” the F250/350 versions of which are seemingly having the capabilities of what would.have been classified as commercial vehicles from just 20(ish) years ago…
1. Your indepent rights end where they impeed on mine (and equally as important vice versa!)
2. Mental huh? Why the %*@% do they need that? People have when seeing a singular person in a clean +8000 lbs cowboy caddillac. And as much as I Love cars (and I do), all vehicles have a practical engineering use cases for which they were built. The mental huh factor when Toby drives his F350 to the corner store by himself to pick up a pack of smokes sets in people’s minds bc said vehicle was designed with towing +18,000 lbs on the regular in mind not efficient quick trips to thr corner store.
3. Ineffective / same licensing (and more important safety training requirements)
Commercial vehicles usually require commercial drivers licenses and much more stringent regulations (hypothetically making them safer or at least helping to offset for the addition risks introduced to drivers and pedestrians of consumer cars / light trucks and bikes/motorbikes/mopeds). Let’s face it the bigger the vehicle the more of an impediment it is to Everyone else around them on the road. Difficult to see over / around. And states only require one to be able to fog a mirror for a regular car / light truck drivers license. It is crazy to think a 10 foot smart car driver has the same license as someone driving a +20 ft. +8000 lbs. (commercial grade capable) towing rig
4. Safety. Anyone (you, your wife, your kid) 5″ 5′ or shorter gets hit by a full size “light” pickup even at 15 mph wont even been seen bf being hit and easily be killed just as if they were hit by a medium duty commercial van/truck
The probability of same death occurring from being struck by a car or suv or small truck is greatly diminished bc of the point of impact on the human body
“I think what most people get upset about is the fact that some F250’s rarely, if ever, do Truck Stuff”
I find this attitude puzzling. I own a diesel F250 that I only occasionally use for “truck stuff,” but I bought it because I love huge pickup trucks and a diesel truck is something I always wanted. I could have bought a Porsche 911 instead, but I chose the truck because I like it. I find it odd that, had I bought a 911 instead of an F250, no one would criticize me for driving it to the grocery store instead of taking it to a race track.
Why does anyone care about how I use my truck?
Amen.
You’ll find few friends here with that attitude though. “Buy what you like” really seems to mean “Buy what I like or I’ll make assumptions about your genitalia”.
You drive your truck to the grocery store and I’ll assume you HAVE genitalia:-)
That’s where you’re wrong. You would be criticized for not driving a 911 to a race track. I think the only choice that is universally lauded is a Miata.
See? I was right!!
I’m glad I’m not the only one who had a dealership lose — albeit temporarily — their vehicle. (Not to wish misfortune on anyone.)
I am willing to bet 99.9% of the car owning population has any idea the RX300 is a tarted-up Highlander. I didn’t until I read your words here, and I fancy myself somewhat knowledgeable about cars. Which leads me to my point.
I doubt most car buyers know the Corsair is an Escape with a different engine because Ford disguises their slight of hand well, IMHO, and most small SUVs kinda look alike anyway.
The Maverick’s profile is pretty easy to pick out in the Sceptre, and maybe even larger sail panels would help change the profile. I like the two-way tailgate, and maybe elevating the tonneau cover would change the lines a bit more without altering any sheetmetal.
But will they ever get small?
Using the advertising as a proxy for people’s expressed preferences, the largeness sure seems a big part of their draw. Perhaps mostly as a signifier of something else?
Just like how the original Toyota Prius – the one that looked like an oddly-proportioned Corolla – was a flop, but when Toyota revised the styling to look very distinctive, it attracted a certain sort of buyer eager to show they owned a hybrid.
Advertising is probably a better proxy for what manufacturers want you to buy first and foremost.
Good point. But I wonder about stuff like the F-150…hasn’t it been the best selling vehicle (period?) for a long while now? Is there a push/pull effect with it – people buy, then demand slows, then Ford advertises it doing whatever, then it goes back up?
The F-150 has long been a bestseller. But its emphasis as an urban commuter, family hauler, and luxury truck is more recent (as is its size increase), fueled by profit seeking and EPA’s truck designation for fuel economy requirements. I suspect Ford advertised the F-150 quite a bit more than the Taurus and Focus before it killed off all its cars.
The Ford F-series = best selling vehicle in the US for +40 years is kind of misleading it is technically true.
But I think it lumps in ALL Ford F-series models together, so F150, F250, F350, F450, F550 and F650
Also if you look at year over year sales numbers and compare / contrast Ford F150/250/350 vs. GM Silverado + GMC Sierra (since come on they Are the same trucks) many times GM’s combined sales numbers are higher.
And I drive Toyotas (OK + soon an old MG)
I love that Family Guy > Brian (the smart dog) drives a gen II prius exactly to poke fun at people who drive prius’ for virture signaling
Made even better when he ends up drunkenly plowing it into the town’s nativity scene.
I like how they’ve nuanced Brian more and more over the years; yeah, he’s often the one character being rational, but he’s also an insufferable poser. And the whole “I’m a writer damnit” bit is so wonderfully complementary.
I like the article but I don’t see people buying a luxury smallish (e.g., Maverick-sized) truck. There is a perception that the bigger model is automatically the better model. The smaller models are “entry level” to the brand. I’ve had single, normal-sized, childless people tell me they “treated” themselves to the RX over the NX, or the Telluride over the Sorento. What are you treating yourself to? Fewer parallel parking opportunities? Worse gas mileage? I can see people looking at the luxury trim Maverick and saying, why not treat myself to the luxury trim F150?
GMC did keep the Canyon Denali into a second generation, so presumably they must sell *some* of them, but in general I agree with you. Space is its own luxury for most.
Arguably the GMC is already the ‘luxury’ version of Chevrolet trucks. Denali is just an ever higher trim for more margin$$
Even if they don’t bump to the luxury trim F150, I definitely know plenty of people who would look at the cost of a Maverick Titanium or something, realize they could get an F150 XLT for about the same money, and choose the bigger vehicle as the perceived better value.
Which is probably a big part of why smaller vehicles tend not to offer the highest trims. Too much price overlap means people won’t see the value.
I’d be interested in a luxury Maverick or a Corsair ute. In fact, that is exactly the vehicle I wished I could get with the Maverick. I like my ventilated seats and other creature comforts, as well as some noise isolation.
The only reaction I had was laughter at the picture of David wearing the cowboy hat. Made me want to buy a big luxo pickup truck right then and there.
The thing that people don’t get, is that luxury trucks are just the modern luxury barges of yore. How else can you get a large (space is a luxury and taking up more than you need is the epitome of American luxury), V8 powered, BOF vehicle without getting a luxury trim fullsize truck? CAFE cheats killed the fullsized American sedan and fullsize trucks took their spots.
What’s interesting is how the overall dynamic also seems very ’70s in that the luxury barges were very mass market, while the upper classes were starting to buy smaller European.
Now, just replace “European” with “electric.”
Or European electric! Taycan… yummy
Plus, the options. Trucks tend to offer more personalization with different engines, rear end ratios, body types, specialization, trims, etc. than has been offered for cars in decades.
CAFE enabled it, but tariffs are what allowed the pickups to flourish in America. Protectionism prohibited competition for pickups, and CAFE let the Detroit-3 run with it.
And, now, decades of culture have reinforced it.
This! People want the rolling sofa. If CAFE didn’t kill BOF sedans a lot of people would be buying those over trucks. Luxury sedans today are all sport sedans. I drive a Silverado because I actually do need it for my job, but if I didn’t I imagine a throwback to the Cadillacs of yore based on the same Silverado platform would be pretty sweet. I also think they actually could get good economy out of them I’ve averaged 23 MPG out of my brick of a Silverado. Lower it down and get rid of so much GVWR it could easily achieve 30s.
I 100% am interested in a late 1990s Buick roadmaster wagon
Supposedly getting 30 (or close to it) at highway speeds is possible bc although it has an LS V8, at highway speeds it is loping along at super low rpms
Plus still can seat 7, although 2 will be facing the back as decades of road tripping American families intended!
Plausible modesty is a big selling point with these though.
There’s a reason the Blackwood and Mark LT (remember those?) flopped while the Platinum and Limited F-150 sell well.
Truck buyers want to share the badge with the lesser models. Even if a luxury truck costs more than many BMWs, a BMW, even a 320i or X1, is “fancy” and dare I say “uppity” in some circles. No idea if small truck buyers would feel the same way, but I think they’d be better off trying this idea with a Maverick Platinum.
You could very well be right. Still, when I first saw the Navigator decades ago I never thought tthat we’d be seeing Lincoln SUVs in all sizes and shapes.
Admittedly there is an Escalade EXT which is not necessarily a big seller, but markets do change and expand. Remember when International Harvester dropped the Scout in 1980 since SUVs were too niche of a market?
For whatever reason, SUVs seem to be coded different for people.
It’s telling to me that the Escalade EXT used the name from the uber-popular SUV (plus it and the Avalanche were based on the SUVs) rather than have its own name and/or be a version of the Silverado.
I think it’s the cross-cutting ubiquity of them at this point…to own an SUV now is like owning a sedan 40 years ago, but to own a pickup is still like owning a pickup. Pickups seemed to have remained more tightly connected to their ethos.
I think the use of large SUVs as “estate cars” helped allow them to be coded as luxury vehicles. The Range Rovers and Wagoneers of the old days were used by the wealthy to traverse their property in comfort. That gives luxury SUVs more of an appearance of prestige while trucks – limited by their intrinsic feature: the bed – will always have a facade of utility.
The number of times I had someone declare my second hand 235i fancy as they got in their truck that cost them twice as much was astounding. I just bought it because it fulfilled my brief of smaller, RWD, manual and >300hp
Nailed it. Similar reason, I think, as why Country music has nearly obliterated the Rock scene these days. It’s basically the same stuff, but packaging and presentation matters.
This is absolutely the correct answer. American Trucks (no matter what trim) are “blue collar worker vehicles” and 15 year old Mercedes are “rich people cars” even though the MB was 17K and the truck was 95K.
Thanks for latching on to the meat of the argument. It’s not the lux part, it’s the trux part. To advocate luxury trucks necessarily includes advocating large luxury trucks.
I wish the Maverick had been out when I was shopping for a truck, and a Lincolnized version could be awesome. Their new stuff catches my eye every time I see it – I don’t know anything else about them, but they sit in the parking lot radiating quiet, confident classiness. I could see myself being a fit, handsome 40-something with salt and pepper hair in one if I was fit, handsome, or a 40-something.
Since people buying luxury trucks, at least where I live, are incapable of handling the extra length of trucks, I would be less averse to them if they were smaller. Because then I wouldn’t be blocked from getting donuts, or blocked in at the grocery store because the truck is at a jaunty angle, or have dents in my rear because someone didn’t realize where the end of their truck was, or…