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Comment by allovernow | Hacker News Reader

Is this really a modern trend, or just cherry picked data? This article needs a more thorough statistical analysis of car width through time.

I'm hesitant to take it at face value because, for example, to my knowledge the classic American land barges of the 60s and 70s (many of which are quite beautiful in an aggressive, almost obnoxious way) were quite wide - a 1969 Dodge charger is just a couple inches narrower than a 1990 Ford F150/Bronco, for example.

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The Toyota Tacoma is a US-only car and is well-known in truck circles for starting out as a "compact" pickup and becoming midsize. Per Google, the 2000 model was 67" wide, the 2020 is 75". An 8" increase is in line with what the article describes.

I don't think compact pickups exist today.

Not in America: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax

The vehicles mentioned (sprinter vans, and Ford Transit) are classified as light trucks, but most people would call them commercial vans or panel vans. Pickup trucks were never commonly imported from Europe, and most of the Japanese makes moved assembly to the US. While the 80s was really the peak of compact pickups, they were still some made into the 2010s, although a 2011 Ranger is a lot bigger than a Ranger from the 80s. I don't think the 2019 Ranger comes in a regular cab either.

Yeah, I used to have a 2003 Tundra, and then I had a friend with a 2008 Tacoma pull up next to me one time, and they were virtually the same size. I shuddered when I realized what that meant for the new Tundra (I already thought my truck was big).

Worth pointing out this is a UK site talking about cars found in Europe.

We’ve never had US style land barges, they simply wouldn’t work on our roads.

> We’ve never had US style land barges, they simply wouldn’t work on our roads.

Land Rover, Rolls-Royce, Bentley, Jaguar, Aston Martin: all iconically British and not known for their compact offerings.

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