Not only that, but they’re getting noticeably larger. Years back, I had a 1988 F-150, so I have a fairly good idea of how much larger the current F-150s are than one made a few decades back. (Seriously, the ones now are at least as large as the F-250s of the '80s.) Of course I also notice that while my truck had dents, mud, and obvious evidence of being used to haul cargo, most of the ones I see on the road now are shiny, clean, and empty. Go figure.
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That’s because America is the world’s first Nerf Civilization, where “safety” is defined by how much metal and how many airbags you can put between yourself and the rest of the universe, rather than how well your vehicle brakes and handles.
It’s why our so-called “economy cars” are lucky to get 30 mpg, when other nations have cars (and American cars you could buy in the '80s) getting 40-50. The same mentality that requires four year olds to wear helmets when riding their tricycles in the front yard is specifying the design of our vehicles.
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To be fair, if you had gallons that weren’t 20% smaller than British ones the numbers might look better 
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Well, single cabs used to be the norm. Now it seems that crew cabs are the norm, with single cabs being outliers. And before 1997, all F-series trucks had the same dimensions, so an '88 F-250 wouldn’t have been any bigger than an '88 F-150.
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I just bought an Audi A4 Avant rather than give up and get an SUV or minivan.
I’m glad wagons aren’t popular. Less trouble finding my car in the parking lot.
May be of interest:
So anyway, I’m cruising through Texas with Andrew P. Collins and a few Ford engineers, when I open the glove box of the truck we’re driving to discover something highly interesting: the 2015 Ford F-150 is so insanely expensive.
For those of you who don’t believe me, I urge you to come take a walk with me through the Ford F-150 online configurator. First up is the XL model, which comes in at a reasonable $26,400 with shipping. But you don’t want the XL model. Nobody wants the XL model, because it doesn’t include stuff like cruise control or power door locks. So Ford sells these XL models in bulk to the U.S. Forest Service, who paints them bright green and uses them to track moose migration.
So you step up to the XLT, which starts at $30,695 before shipping. That’ll do. So then the discussion turns to body styles: obviously you don’t want the regular cab, because you know more than one other human being. So you opt for the super cab, which adds $2,885 to the price tag. Choosing the four-door Super Crew, if you had been so bold, adds $5,235. Five thousand. Two hundred. Thirty-five. For two extra doors. Just for the record, I’ve purchased working automobiles for that sum of money.
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It’s all about perception. A coworker jokingly referred to my vehicle as a minivan, and the only thing that really differentiates it from a minivan is the lack of sliding rear doors and low floor. I joked back, “yes, it’s a minivan with 300hp and paddle shifters”. It’s an Acura MDX. I actually wanted the boxier Volvo XC90 for hauling stuff, but in the class of cars I was shopping (used cars at least three years old), the Volvo driver’s seat felt tiny and flat, and the overall interior was older technology than the Acura. I’m not buying anything, used or otherwise, that still uses incandescent bulbs. It stupid, old technology that wears out too fast. But yes, even here in Seattle and its surrounds, the F150 is very popular. Many families have a car and an F150. And as someone pointed out above, there are far fewer trucks to pick from than cars, so one model will tend to dominate. The fact that it is the model that is relatively cheaper, of decent build quality, and a U.S. brand, is not surprising.
Maybe people in Seattle are just biased against buying Tacomas?
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Pretty sure that the Subaru Outback is the state car of Colorado…
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Well every single vehicle I’ve ever purchased was for ‘less’ than the difference between the 4-door & 2-door crew cab (until last year). I just don’t get spending that kind of money on ANY new vehicle.
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So so so many Priuses in Seattle and sadly I too drive one. One day while walking the 3/4 mile or so from my house to the library branch nearby I counted 15+ of them that I could see either driving the main road or parked in the various lots. Not sure what is in the water here but something is.
Yep, why would anyone halfway sane want to cop all that depreciation?
Not to mention the fact that you can’t buy a light car anymore; 1500kg is light these days. My car is thirty years old and 900kg… it doesn’t take a whole lot of thought to see how many resources that saves.
I’m betting the car manufacturers make more money percentage-wise on trucks and SUV’s than cars, which have more complicated safety features. I believe that was the reason Chrysler had the PT Cruiser classed as a truck, even though it was meant to be used as a compact car - they state it was for fuel economy standards for their trucks, but hey, the standards are different for a lot things when you go from a car to a truck. It’s in their interest to promote those kinds of vehicles, and the higher end performance cars, even the foreign manufactured ones. Not many commercials for the Chevy Spark, or the Mazda 2, even though it would be wise in running costs - the pickups, with a dead simple ladder frame that goes back the beginning of motor vehicles, have less basic engineering involved, they’ve been making them pretty much the same forever, they just tweak them.
Here in Silicon Valley, Priuses are probably the most common car on the road. Yes, there are BMWs of various sorts around, but there are a lot more Priuses, and a lot of other hybrid or electric cars (Nissan Leaf, etc. in addition to the occasional Teslas.)
Priuses are one of very few cars available in the U.S. that get better gas mileage and have cleaner emissions than a BMW with a new diesel engine.
The last time I looked into the Leaf, it still wasn’t available for purchase in Michigan. Nissan (although licensing Toyota’s tech) is missing out on some profits in my county. Prius is the most visible of the hybrids around here, but there are a lot of C-Maxs, hybrid Fusions, Volts and other Toyota hybrids around. I know of at least two Tesla S’s around town, no Roadsters.
The last time I looked into hybrid cars, it made zero sense, financially, to purchase one as compared to their gas-powered equivalents (I think I looked at the Camry, and one of the Ford sedans as well). To offset the extra cost of the hybrid, I think I calculated that I would have had to keep the car for 15 years based on the gas prices at the time, with my driving habits, to offset the cost differences via the improvement in mileage. But that was a good 5 years ago, now.
I tried really hard to find an Avant here in Southern CA - they don’t sell it anymore in the USA, so I was looking for CPO - and couldn’t find one within 500 miles of me. The S4 Avant is my dream car.
I found a really good deal on a CPO Allroad, but it got snapped up before I could look at it…
We got an X3 CPO instead with the turbo 4. Actually it gets better mileage than my old 2008 A4 quattro and the GTI that it replaced. It’s small enough and nimble, but still has room for the 4 dogs when necessary.
Why yes Ron Swanson is my Facebook avatar :). I have a fully manual 95 Nissan light duty. It has hauled uncountable tons of rock and mulch (last weekend alone was four tons). But it always cracks me up to see pristine, unscratched truck beds (they’re doing it wrong! :D)
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