Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by bluedino | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

bluedino

> Pickup trucks are great, but they're only available in "behemoth" size in the US.

Not all trucks are 1/4 or 1/2 ton in the USA.

There's things like the Honda Ridgeline, Hyundai Santa Cruze, and the Ford Maverick

Subaru had the Baja for a little white but they only sold a couple thousand per year.

View on HN

The Ridgeline and Maverick are actually quite large compared to a 90s Ranger. Yes, not everything needs to be as big as a modern half-ton, but everything has shifted towards huge.

Regardless of the capacity, the Ridgeline is not a small truck. There are no small trucks anymore. The Ranger and Colorado are not small trucks, they are mid size. Compare them to the pre-2019 Ranger, and the pre-2011 Colorados and S10s.

Sure, the Maverick is kinda small. But and does fine for most people, but it's not really built like a truck. For some reason, I can't handle this thing, because it's replaced real small trucks. It's just an Escape under the covers, and nobody considers the Escape to be a workhorse. Yet, I can give the Baja a pass, because it was honest in the fact that it's a car with a bit of a utility bed.

All of these trade bed space for seating space, and they're still larger than my stepdad's 1990s-era Sonoma. As a sibling comment pointed out, you can't carry 4x8 sheet goods easily in these.

Wouldn't you need to flag a sheet of plywood in the back of a Maverick? My old '06 Canyon doesn't require that and it's actually a smaller truck than the Maverick.

you’d need to flag a sheet of 4x8 in quite a few of the full sized pickups after you get the extended crew cab which shrinks the bed and makes them more of an SUV than a truck. THeres a platonic ideal of a truck bed holding 2x4 and 4x8 sheets, but it’s more of an ideal sometimes.

The overall problem is that the ratio of vehicle size to carrying capacity has gotten way larger. Small 2-seater pickup trucks could comfortably carry this stuff in the 80s and 90s and were not that much bigger than a sedan. Modern trucks are enormous and can't even carry as much unless you choose options that make them even bigger.

Then compare this to something like a Kei truck and it's really quite pathetic.

>Then compare this to something like a Kei truck and it's really quite pathetic.

I will forever be sad that Canoo was wildly (possibly fraudulently) mismanaged and went bust before they ever built any of their planned pickup trucks:

https://cars.usnews.com/cars-trucks/features/canoo-pickup-tr...

They were going to be built on the same platform as their vans and the best way to describe them is "Kei truck upsized and uppowered enough to be safe on US roads." They had neat party tricks like a compact bed for daily driving that could expand out to fit full size ply and fold out workbenches on all four sides of the truck.

I'm not even a truck guy and I desperately wanted one of these things. Just such a cool concept.

Thset is really sad - I'd seen a review of an early model on YouTube and it seemed like a brilliant idea - really hope someone else can make something similar work.

> They had neat party tricks like a compact bed for daily driving that could expand out to fit full size ply...

Unless I'm missing something this sounds like the bed extenders which I've seen on lots of trucks that allow the tailgate to be used as part of the bed when folded down. I was initially think they might be allowing the passenger compartment to be opened up to temporarily get full bed size but I didn't see anything like that when browsing the page. The closest thing I ever saw to that was on the Subaru Baja (which was far more a sedan than a truck) and given how short the bed was and the the fact that the back window was immobile seemed like it had less hauling utility than a standard hatchback.

It was a built-in expander. The bed was 4x6 in standard configuration and could pull out another 2 feet to get 4x8 when you needed it.

Yeah, but they were 2-seater trucks. Very few people want that these days.

Our truck carries stuff a lot. Bags of feed, bales of hay, etc. But unless you want to stack it unreasonably high, 10 bales is about the limit. For big loads, it has to haul a trailer. If it were only a 2-seater, with a bigger bed, it could carry more, but that would mean that all we wouldn't be able to carry all the stuff that's typically in the back seats for safety or protection from the elements.

Like everything, it's a tradeoff.

They have shorter beds, because of the larger cab, but a 1975 Ram one ton could carry 3500 lbs of payload in the bed, and pull a 11,500lb trailer.

A 2025 one can carry 7500 lbs of payload in the bed, and tow 37,090 lbs (some states require extra permits or licenses for that much)

All modern trucks can carry and tow WAY more than they used to.

and the 1/2 ton ones have dramatically impvoved mileage (the modern 3L diesels do about 29Mpg, and the gas ones turn off cylinders when crusing, and can do 20-25mpg when empty. My older small pickup (old ram Dakota) from the early 2000's got 15-16 on the highway.

Total weight is up, but volume is not, and for most people volume is far more important because they aren't trying to put a full pallet of concrete in the back. The weight capacity of basic 90s and '00s trucks were already enough to fill it solid 3 feet thick of stacked wet treated lumber.

Sure, but who cares? Unless you're a contractor/tradesperson, that's a fairly rare edge case.

I've owned a few pickups over the years, owned my house much of that time, and can probably county the times I've needed to move plywood or other oversized lumber on one hand. Add a second hand for times I've moved long pipes or other oversized stuff that required flagging.

So then what the heck did you have a pickup for if you're not moving around large items?

Currently, towing a travel trailer and hauling filthy camping shit and mountain bikes. So nice to toss wet stanky shit in the bed instead of in the cab. I need the tow capacity either way, so may as well have a useful bed (vs an enclosed SUV).

Previous truck was to haul a race car on a trailer. Same fringe benefits for the camping shit, plus tools and spare parts for the race car (engines sometimes, wheels/tires, etc).

If you’re a contractor or tradesperson, chances are you’re having sheet goods delivered to the job site by a supply house, unless it’s a tiny project/service call.

My electricians have pipe racks on their work vans, but if they’re buying 5,000 feet of 3/4” conduit (10’ sticks), you better believe a box truck will deliver it. If they need 40 feet for a quick service call, that’s what the pipe racks are for.

I agree with you though, the ability to move sheet goods flat in a truck bed is almost completely unnecessary.

If you really want to do this in a 5’ bed pickup, you can get a rack for above the cab and a crossbar with two posts that installs into the topper mounting holes near the tailgate to provide a 4’x8’ plane to carry sheet goods on. Here’s a universal example for $200, a nicer one meant for a specific truck is probably 3-4x more: https://wmastore.com/product/universal-drywall-plywood-mattr...

The current model year Santa Cruz and Maverick are roughly the same size as the Tacoma, and the Tacoma is now the same size as a Ford F-150 was in the 90s when the Ford Ranger came out as a successful small pickup and the Tacoma was sized the same as the Ford Ranger. The vehicle size bloat in the last 30 years has been insane.

Sure, but the OG Brat is a tiny truck by modern US standards. It's like the Miata of trucks.

Even my 01 Forester will look big parked next to the OG Brat. Despite looking diminutive next to most modern vehicles here in Cali... It's super annoying how big ~everything on the road has become.

The Ridgeline is closer to a 1/4 ton like a Tacoma or Ranger. I own one. It's great for what it is, fits my outdoor lifestyle well (towing a small travel trailer, a few mountain bikes, and a large cooler).

The Maverick, Santa Cruz, and the currently-vaporware Slate are much smaller.

Agreed, they aren't all huge, but they are all pretty big and the few that aren't huge sacrifice a lot of bed size.

I'm going through this now because I'm looking at upgrading from my ancient 2002 Tacoma Xtracab. Here's compared to 2025 models:

    Vehicle                       Length    Bed
    ----------------------------  --------  -----
    2002 Toyota Tacoma (Xtracab)  202.9"    74.5"
    2002 Toyota Tacoma (2Dr)      184.4"    74.5"

    2025 Maverick                 199.8"    54.4"
    2025 Honda Ridgeline          210.2"    64.0"
    2025 Hyundai Santa Cruz       195.7"    52.1"
    2025 Toyota Tacoma Xtracab    213.0"    73.5"

My Tacoma wasn't even the shortest you could buy back then and it's still shorter than half of the "small" trucks you can buy today. And unlike those, my truck has a full 6' bed. A Maverick is shorter than mine, but the bed is also nearly two feet shorter. I honestly don't see the point of a bed that's less than five feet long. At that point, it's just an SUV with a trunk that isn't weather-sealed.

Now, granted, it's not like you get nothing in return. These new vehicles (except the new Tacoma Xtracab) all have four doors and full-sized back seats. I can fit a kid in my jump seats but anyone older than that has a bad time. I'm sure they're safer for everyone in the truck too.

But if you really do want to prioritize bed size and still want a short vehicle, that option is just no longer well supported. I accept that my use case is probably a narrow one:

* Live in a dense city with a lot of parallel parking so don't want a long vehicle.

* Kayak fish a lot so want a long bed I can load a kayak in.

* Can get away with a two-seater because we can use my wife's car when there are passengers.

But it's definitely not as well served as it used to be. I'm probably going to end up with a short-bed Tacoma and rely on a bed extender to keep the kayak safe.

Why get rid of your perfectly fine truck? People would be lining up around the block for your truck. As you say they don’t make them like that anymore. Here in socal there are still 70s-80s era ford and chevy trucks in service. Those old f150s look tiny today. And in major demand even if they aren’t prestine.

The answer is sad. Last year, I destroyed my left ankle when I slipped in a puddle while biking to work. Even after three surgeries and tons of physical therapy, the joint is falling apart. I drive a stick and it hurts every single time I push the clutch pedal in, so I've accepted that I have to move to an automatic.

> People would be lining up around the block for your truck.

You're not lying. I'm the only owner and it's got barely over 100k miles on it. Every few years, I find a note on it from someone asking if I'm interested in selling.

The kids joke that I love that truck more than them.

It has been a really amazing vehicle and I've had a ton of fun in it. But I'd be lying if I didn't say that it would be nice to have, you know, anti-lock brakes and a back-up camera.

For what it's worth (maybe not much from an internet stranger), I couldn't possibly overstate how much I love my Ridgeline. I love the trunk under the bed, I love how the back seats fold up for extra in-cab cargo space, and I love how the unibody structure and independent rear suspension make it drive like a car. It's comfortable enough that I can use it happily for longer road trips.

I love it so much that when it was stolen on a trip to Montreal a few years ago, I bought the exact same year and model again without even googling other options.

It is a bit longer than I'd prefer--I live in urban Chicago and occasionally do have to forgo a good parking space, but usually those are, like, Honda Civic spaces that a slightly smaller truck wouldn't fit into either.

I didn't seriously consider the Ridgeline because it's, uh, kind of funny looking, but you are making me take another look. Thanks, I'll do some research.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com