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Comment by asciimov | Hacker News Reader

I seriously miss compact trucks, like the Mazda B-series, Ford Courier, Ford Ranger (before it became a mid-size in 2019).

These kinds of trucks might more to your liking. Sure they aren't as small and cute as the imports, but your local auto store can still get you parts for them.

They are fun to drive, fairly fuel efficient, and are capable of hauling material from the home center. I learned to drive stick, and how to pop the clutch when you have a dead battery, in a Ford Courier on the high plains of west Texas.

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I still drive a manual 2002 Toyota Tacoma and you'll have to claw it out of my dead hands for this exact reason. I really love the utility of a pick-up truck, but I absolutely despise the size of any of them in the US in the past couple of decades.

I wish they still made mid-sized pick-ups that were actually mid-sized.

A Tacoma is nearly the size of Tundra was twenty years ago, and a Tundra today is like the size of a damn schoolbus.

Yeah, what the hell happened?

And I miss my manual (1980's?) Chevy Luv.

From what I understand, the two main drivers are:

- safety standards (eg crumple zones)

- emissions and efficiency regulations that vary with the footprint of the vehicle. Vehicles with larger footprint (= width x length) are allowed to have lower fuel economy numbers, which perversely means that one solution to a truck having poor fuel economy is to make it… bigger.

Another driver is everyone getting pickup trucks and the resulting market distortion. Farmer that needs to haul equipment? You need a pickup truck. Family of four that needs to do the school run? For some reason you’ll also be getting a pickup truck. And there are a lot more of the latter to market to.

There's a lot of room to talk yourself into a pickup. They aren't cheap. If you can afford one, you can also probably afford a boat or a trailer. If either is of more than diminutive size (even theoretically, as a planned future purchase), that basically narrows you down to a pickup or equivalent size SUV. If you also want to carry home improvement goods (concrete blocks, plywood, drywall, or anything longer than 8'), it's way easier to get those in and out of a pickup.

I don't think most people use their trucks this way most days, but it's easy to convince yourself you will.

I’d also add that they became a lifestyle accessory. Once SUVs started getting identified with soccer moms, the size and macho styling of pickups started going up along with the price. That makes a lot of sense financially for the manufacturer since a business user is going to be a lot more price sensitive, especially for stuff which isn’t durable, and there are a ton of people who don’t really need one but like the image so moving in that direction can grow your market significantly as long as you don’t drive away your original audience.

If you want to actually carry passengers in your truck, you want 4 doors and a full back seat. The new Tacomas are great trucks, because it's practical to carry cargo or people in them. Old single cab Rangers, Luvs, Tacomas, etc, were fine, but not as broad market.

If you need to carry passengers, a truck probably isn't the right choice. Four doors and a bed make for an oversized and inefficient vehicle for hauling either people or cargo alone. You say "broad market", I say "ill suited for most tasks."

Yep. It's a big reason I stuck with a Fit (can still cram in a decent amount of stuff) instead of a small pickup.

Aside from the fact that there don't seem to be small pickups anymore, the closest ones I've found all seem to have 4 doors and a really short bed. I can count on one hand the number of times I've had more than one passenger in my Fit, but I frequently need to pick up large items at the local home center or haul things to the dump (old home renovation).

But since most smaller trucks seem like large cars with stubby beds, I settle for having my 4x8 plywood sheets ripped at the store or scoring/folding drywall sheets so I can slide them in from the hatch to the passenger seat.

> If you need to carry passengers, a truck probably isn't the right choice. Four doors and a bed make for an oversized and inefficient vehicle for hauling either people or cargo alone. You say "broad market", I say "ill suited for most tasks."

It's a fine choice, as long as the truck has 4 doors. And the super cabs don't really affect gas mileage much at all.

When I was growing up, my dad had one of those tiny Rangers. There were 3 of us kids. My dad was a part-time plumber and also built our house when we were younger. We'd make regular trips to Lowe's or whatever with him when my mom was working. There weren't even 4 separate seat belts. It wasn't really safe, and it was a tight squeeze that was only possible because we were quite young. Anyways, many reasons why you sometimes need to do both.

Not Just Bikes, a YouTuber made a video about increasing vehicle sizes in the US and why you may be interested in

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jN7mSXMruEo

Nothing has happened -- new trucks are within the dimensions of old trucks +-5% for similar configurations. This is very easy to validate with a quick search. The real question is how this myth got started.

I drive past a 1970s Ford truck daily and nothing has changed with sizes in the same vehicle category. Newer cars are just more bulbous and thicker. Full-size pickups have been just short of 80" wide since regulations in the 1960s on clearance lights. What _did_ change is the compact truck category vanished for a while (and those compacts were then re-designed as mid-sized). The category is making a comeback now with unibody trucklets like the Ford Maverick and Hyundai Santa Cruz.

But no, a new Tacoma isn't even close to the size of an old Tundra (212 vs 230 inches length, 75 vs 79 inch width). Also a new Tundra is right there with the size of an old Tundra (233 vs 230 inches length for double cab, same width)

Here's the specs from Edmund's:

                                    length    bed
    2002 Tacoma 2-door              184.4"  74.5"
    No 2022 model                   --- -   -- -

    2002 Tacoma Xtracab             202.9"  74.5"
    2022 Tacoma 4-door access cab   212.3"  73.7"

    2002 Tacoma 4-door              202.9"  61.5"
    2022 Tacoma 4-door double cab   212.3"  60.5"

    2002 Tundra 2-door              217.5"  98.2"
    No 2022 model                   --- -   -- -

    2002 Tundra 4-door access cab   217.5"  74.7"
    No 2022 model                   --- -   -- -

    No 2002 model                   --- -   -- -
    2022 Tundra 4-door double cab   233.6"  77.6"

So with Tundras, there's no way to directly compare since they didn't offer double cabs in 2002, and offer only them in 2022.

But with Tacomas, you can see that in the same category, they've gotten about ten inches longer (while losing some bed length!).

A 2022 Tacoma access cab is 212.3", less than five inches shorter than a 2002 Tundra access cab.

It's so bizarre to me as an Australian that these are considered "compact". Here they are the standard utility vehicle for every tradesman (although the Toyota Hilux is perhaps most popular). Coming from my hatchback I find these long and awkward to park / merge.

Sadly Dodge Rams and other stupid big US cars are starting to rear their ugly faces, although they look hilariously out of place on our roads. A popular term for them is "emotional support vehicle"

I'm utterly baffled why Toyotas like the 79 Series LandCruiser hasn't taken over the United States yet

It is the most American vehicle ever made

Next to no electronics, far stronger than a Hilux, all standard dirt cheap parts that are all entirely serviceable in the middle of no where and most importantly for Americans: a massive V8 diesel engine

Out bush I see quite a few 6 wheeler modified ones with double 220L (63 gallon) fuel tanks

US Regulatory capture shooting themselves in the foot I guess

A couple reasons might be the chicken tax (25% tariff on all imported trucks) and if it's "too small" it might be in the category of light trucks where the EPA imposes very strict fuel economy standards.

I blame regulatory capture for both of these things. Gotta protect American big truck manufacturers from competition from smaller, lighter, possibly cheaper vehicles.

The MY2022 Maverick is what the new Ranger should have been. And the Hyundai Santa Cruz also was introduced in MY2022. Finally some steps in the right direction, at least.

I really like the cut of those new Santa Cruz. Every time I see one I'm like "yeah, that's the stuff"

I wish they would roll out a two (or two and a half) door version of the Santa Cruz like the original prototype [0].

My 2001 Ford Ranger hit this sweet spot beautifully but it was a DOHC and when the timing chain came apart it wasn't worth doing an engine swap. I can't find a replacement currently but am holding out hope for the Toyota Tacoma electric in a year or two.

[0] https://www.motorbiscuit.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/hyun...

Checked em out, but again...more seats and less bed is not what I need. I just want a car-like light truck for me to drive around the city alone or with a single passenger during the week and pick up sheets of plywood or drywall on the weekends. Don't want a big truck, don't need to carry a family of four.

But Santa Cruz is at least a step in the right direction.

The brazilian Ford Courier model was an amazing pickup. Its 1.6 engine was a beast for the weight (~1000kg if I remember correctly, you’d lose traction on launch very easily).

I’ts kinda crazy that cars like that are not even made anymore. You can barely load a couple boxes into most of the currently popular extended-cabin abominations.

I used to use an old Ford Ranger on a farm as a teen and it was a great truck. It was tough in its own way, easy to fix, and took alot of abuse. I rolled it once (not in it fortunately), and got it stuck in a stream. We dragged it out was a tractor, rolled it upright, waited for the carburetor to drain or something and got it back on the road.

The funny thing is the Ford Courier had the Mazda Body but a Toyota engine as I had one in high school.

You can get the Ford Maverick

A Maverick is just an open air hatchback.

It's the same length as my 2002 Xtracab Tacoma, which is nice, but my Tacoma has a bed that's literally twenty inches longer.

I still long in my heart for a pickup that is as small as possible while having an 8 ft bed, but honestly once you also need to take children with you wherever you go, the compromise of a shorter bed with a good sized back seat (to accommodate car seats) really begins to make a lot of sense.

I ended up just attaching a trailer hitch to my Chevy Volt and buying a lightweight 8ft trailer. As long as I just need to move big and not heavy, it's perfectly adequate, and the mileage when I'm not hauling is a lot better.

And it cost me about $2k while keeping me out of the insane used truck market.

> A Maverick is just an open air hatchback.

Not always. Sometimes it's a weird little muscle car platform.[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Maverick_(1970–1977)

At 199.7 inches, the Maverick is a barely an inch shorter than the shortest Ranger (201.2).

I wish you could! They’re impossible to find.

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