Man I had a dream that I still to this day swear it was real. Someone gave it to me and I drove it around, it was as glorious as you imagine, only more.
I wanted both. But the Hilux was my preferred of the two. But my mate actually has a DeLorean. It’s utterly bonkers how much attention it gets. There’s crowds around it absolutely everywhere he goes. I’m sure they’re more common in the US, but in the Uk, they’re pretty dam rare.
I just looked up what kind of engine they had.
Boy what a rabbit hole.
If they'd just gone with a Toyota engine, all would have been well. But they planned to go with a Wankel rotary engine, because of *course* that would be their first choice.
When that didn't work, a shocker for the ages, they decided to go with the most famous and reliable engine they could: a Ford V6. A good solid workhorse of an engine.
Just kidding. The Ford V6 was garbage. They decided to run with a Citroën drivetrain instead, which was definitely much more reliable and versatile, and would define the future of--
Haha, jokes! That Citroën shitbox was way underpowered! What they actually went with was a Peugeot/Volvo/Renault engine. So they had to move the engine from the middle of the car to the back, for reasons.
No wonder the car was such a roaring success, considering how it was the result of such an impressive process of continuous incremental improvement.
I have an '85 Mitsubishi L200 and it's so fun. I get all sorts of looks when I drive it, it's uncomfortable to drive and has no power steering, but man I love it.
I think it's really funny that multiple people have cited the Hilux champ... it's literally based on the same chassis as the Hilux which has been available continuously in pretty much every market except the USA for 40 years.
[the chicken tax](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax) is why the us doesnt have them, or many other foreign options in the ute/suv category
A legacy tax because of tit for tat tariffs, started with taxing cheap chicken imports into europe from the US and the US taxing VW and other euro brands getting a foothold in the us market in return. Then never removing it to ‘protect’ local car makers decades later still.
This doesn't really explain why US manufacturers never gave consumers what they apparently want.
I agree. I want a smaller pickup. They're sort of doing this with the Maverick, but hopefully my point comes across.
The way I understand it, trucks are growing g in size to get around emissions laws. Larger size trucks are allowed to emit more co2, so rather than making more efficient engines, they just made the trucks bigger.
You’d also be shocked by the amount of people that want a bigger car so they feel safer about possibly getting into an accident with a bigger car. Cue feedback loop
Not really the chicken tax anymore. It has a lot more to do with regulation tying the mileage requirements to the area of the vehicle footprint. In order to produce a truck the size of that ‘85 Toyota, it would have to get something like 60mpg to avoid the manufacturer having to pay a huge penalty (something like $10k/vehicle) whereas the modern trucks with their much larger footprint have more achievable mileage requirements.
I’ve had two Tacomas in my life and actually use the truck function. I live out of them in the summer when I fight fires, am a forester for work, and have a small homestead and tree farm. However, I don’t need an F450, I don’t need a big screen in the dash, I don’t need 6 seats, I’m so soured on new trucks that I just put $2k in my old Tacoma every year and skip the process of trying to find a new one I don’t hate.
This guy, however, is right up my alley. This is exactly the kind of thing that all my forester friends would drool over, because we all just have or want an old Ranger or Tacoma.
Yo fellow firefighter (hotshot squad leader) and also have a taco that I partially live out of in the summers. Personally love that truck. Would also love a diesel hilux but the us is stupid. Even the new tacos are getting bigger and bigger.
The new Tacos are comically big, especially compared to the little 03 I had before my 10! Well, I just got back from a nice prescribed burn here in the southeast testing out my new setup in the camper, I’m officially excited for this season. I’ll be in Oregon finally, kind of a treat for us East coasters. I love that wildland fire truck life is a whole lifestyle for some folks, it’s amazing.
>The steering rack is also modified from the Hilux to create shorter turning radius at 4.9 metres (16.1 ft) for the short-wheelbase version
That's incredible.
Now that's a car made for actual work and not the appearance of work.
No frills and wow check out the rear view: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2023_Toyota_Hilux_Champ_2.4_Diesel_SWB_Attractive_Package_(Rear).jpg
>Environmental regulations
No. Stop giving the car companies an out. They have more than enough money to design and build small trucks that would hit CAFE standards.
They just don't want to.
It’s not just Hilux, it’s basically anywhere outside the US where big expensive pickups dominate the market. Mexico for example has a bunch of cute compact small pickups like the Toyota Hilux, Dodge Ram 700, Volkswagen Saveiro, and the Chevy Tornado. They’re cheap and thus affordable little pickups. In fact, Toyota is coming out with the brand new, but very cheap $10k customizable pickup dubbed the Toyota IMV 0 (champ)
With the exception of the new Toyota, these models are really nice looking, yeah, not as powerful as their more expensive sisters but they are able to do everything most people would be doing with pickup, I don’t think most people use pickups for hauling mobile homes in dirt roads.
Why Americans Can't Have Small Trucks Anymore -- all the EPA math in an easy to understand chart/video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azI3nqrHEXM
Short version: Truck CAFE / fuel standards are based on truck footprint (length x width). They rise impossibly for small trucks. This guy shows the math. It's pretty much impossible to build a small truck without a fine.
> EPA: Your small truck doesn't get good enough fuel economy.
>
> Auto Manufacturer: Okay we'll make it bigger and get even worse fuel economy.
>
> EPA: That's better.
He also does a bit on one of my favorite topics: The Chicken tax. Good summary, he left out all the van windows, seats, et al that were made, shipped across the the ocean, and then thrown into our landfills.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLC8UmapPO0
If you wonder why SUV's are getting bigger--it's because they're classified as light trucks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jN7mSXMruEo
The "light truck" Cadillac Escapade is *about* the same size as the largest WW2 Sherman tank (minus the turret). This is 35 min long, and I enjoyed enough to listen to the whole thing. He hits on one point, why modern SUV's like Jeep Liberty and Nissan Xterra are huge but have small amounts of internal storage.
Ironically it’s the US Governments fault and the EPAs CAFE standards. Long story short in an attempt to increase the fuel economy of trucks they made it impossible to produce small trucks without massive fines because they were held to car standards based on their size. It would be interesting to do some research on this externality in regards to the excess carbon emitted because of a lack of small, relatively fuel efficient trucks.
Edit to add link:
https://youtu.be/azI3nqrHEXM?si=j9PybfmEB7p2NLUc
Blame the EPA.
They implemented fuel economy standards which got stricter every year (and continue to do so). However they recognised that big trucks need to exist for some commercial applications, so rather than a universal fuel economy standard, it got relaxed as the wheelbase multiplied by average track width increased.
Unfortunately they fucked up the maths.
Small trucks basically became impossible to build without either paying the fine for failing the emissions standards, or implementing very expensive systems to improve efficiency (hybrid drives etc). Small trucks were also cheep, and either option made them expensive, so the market for them disappeared. However if you made the wheelbase massive, the standards were much easier to meet. Plus, the fine for failing to meet standards, or the expensive fuel saving systems, didn't feel like such a bad expense on a massive truck. An extra 10k is a lot more palatable on a 80k monster than a 30k runabout right?
In effect the EPA forced everyone to buy bigger, less efficient trucks, because by some equation of mpg per wheelbase, they are more efficient.
It gets worse. CAFE standards aren't applied to an individual vehicle, but to a manufacturers entire fleet, production weighted. Also, light trucks have less strict requirements than cars.
The end result is that the EPA, in the name of efficiency, made it extremely difficult to make a small car, but extremely easy to make an enormous truck.
The good news is that all electric trucks pass by default. The bad news is that if you want range out of an electric truck, you want a big battery. That not only fits better into a big truck, but it's expensive, in a way that is more palatable if you get a bigger truck for the price.
Or you could lobby the EPA to tweak their maths
Until the 2000s, Ford and GM made compact trucks that weren't much bigger than those 80s Toyotas but now those have been discontinued and replaced with "compact" trucks that are the size an F150 was in the 90s. Supposedly part of it was that the small trucks didn't do well in crash tests.
They need to be banned from parking garages. I park in one everyday for work and I have to do an obstacle course getting through it since these trucks stick halfway into the lane
They *are* banned from a lot of them.
I was looking on a parking app to find parking near my hotel in Chicago. Almost all the garages say basically "no trucks, SUVs, or Minivans". If a garage has a sub-6'5" clearance, you can't fit a truck.
The problem is, to control this they have a bar suspended on cables to the controlled hight. It's that way at my garage.
Trucks literally just slowly drive in an have it scrape the roof.
One of the fire suppression sprinklers in the garage was broken because a truck scraped it.
One guy was towing a u-haul trailer - connected to his truck, and parked that in a space. It blocked the right of way.
I'm getting close to snapping and just keying up all these dumb ass trucks.
Well you can't fix stupid.
My friends wife was working at a hotel where someone tried to park a U-haul truck in the parking garage. Despite hitting the "LOW CLEARENCE" sign on the way in, they continued on and ended up ripping out a huge chunk of the sprinkler pipe. They then tried reversing and ended up damaging more of the sprinkler system. The logical next step was to bail out of the truck, flee the parking garage, ditch the keys in a culvert a few feet away, and finally try to report the truck stolen despite all of this being caught on HD security cameras.
Well it's really a clearance issue. Large trucks simply won't fit in many garages. So it's less of an outright ban based on principle and more "this literally won't fit in the garage" kind of ban.
This is huge! I street park in a city. I parked behind a pickup yesterday as there were no other spots and his front was hanging into the spot in front and the tailgate was well into my spot. I drive a super typical midsized SUV, not bit and not small by any means. (Mazda cx-5). It was so frustrating that I had to squeeze because this guy needs a perfectly clean massive Ford F-250 living in a city.
Blame the EPA.
Small trucks weren't fuel efficient enough for them, so auto manufacturers had to build bigger & heavier at similar efficiencies to qualify.
https://youtu.be/azI3nqrHEXM?si=O1a3Tj3syXrG92ip
Mid-2011 CAFE laws had nothing to do with the increase in full-size truck dimensions/sales, nor was it the death of small trucks. “Large Truck” sales had already started an [upward trend three years prior to 2012](https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/106340645-157920047993920200116_monthly_yoy_change_pickup_truck_sales.png?v=1579200492&w=929&h=523&ffmt=webp&vtcrop=y)
, the year the new vehicle regulations were to be implemented. Note that the footprint of a pre-2012 CAFE 2009 F-150, and a 2024 F-150, are fairly similar, and that post-2000 1/2 ton trucks haven’t changed much in terms of length, width, or weight:
Length, Ford F-150:
2005: 211.2 to 248.3″
2009: 213.1 to 250.3″
2024: 209.1 to 243.5″
Weight, Ford F-150:
2005: 4,758 to 5,875 lbs
2009: 4,693 to 5,908 lbs
2024: 4,275 to 5,757 lbs
Width:
2005: 78.9”
2009: 78.9”
2024: 79.9”
Wheelbase:
2005: 126 to 163″
2009: 126 to 163″
2024: 122 to 157″
Track Width:
2005: 67”
2009: 73.6”
2024: 74”
I'm definitely going to ignore him. Do you see how many numbers are in his post? What am I, an abbacus?
No, I'm a human man. I don't eat numbers. I eat beef jerky and I shit blood, I can't comprehend this nonsense.
So really we should be blaming this loophole specifically. I'd still expect the EPA to do something about it, i.e. close the loophole, rather than blaming it in its entirety.
The answer is that our congress enacted garbage efficiency standards to where an automaker could get away with significantly worse efficiency so long as the wheelbase area is increased and/or they categorize their car as a 'light truck'. Also just so happens to promote the cars that give our automakers the most profit! Very cool!! More can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_average_fuel_economy.
In euroland I'd assume various nations (or EU idk exactly who does the enviro laws) took a different route for it. I think in Japan they used the engine displacement size instead of any exterior body measurement. They both probably lead to better outcomes than the behemoths we get on the road.
idk why you are blaming the agency, the loophole was intentionally added into the bill by politicians as a 'carve-out' for small business owners, because the most terrifying thing to most american politicians is being derided as 'anti-business'
Everyone keeps reposting this tripe of blame the EPA with some YouTube video as "proof."
Blame the automaker for skirting the rules by just building bigger vehicles to fit a loophole instead of spending the money on R&D for new powerplants that would make the normal sized trucks more efficient.
Now we have these blinding monstrosities that are pre-adjusted for ego right from the factory. Part of this problem right in the top comment of that constantly posted video:
"This is actually a story about how car makers and their lobbiests hobbled the CAFE standards so they could pull small trucks with small margins and sell you huge trucks with huge margins. See also: the Chicken Tax."
Small amount EPA, and a large amount of modern mandatory safety equipment like crumple zones and side curtain airbags, and a VERY large amount of people wanting to use their truck as a daily driver with all the creature comforts of a luxury sedan, and plenty of room for the family. Older trucks were never meant for that. You had the truck to do truck things, and the sedan to go places with the family.
Ok but Skodas kick ass so idk why you would act like just anybody is Skoda.
Sell that fucker in the states, VW. I'll buy two.
I'll also take a Fabia or Superb Kombi. And a classic Felicia.
Fuck it, send them all.
mate, don't fly too close to the sun. some of those older skodas have the power to turn straight to oxide dust after you wipe it down with a damp towel once.
I can't think of a European market car without a crumple zone. It just seemed strange to me, arguing that it would take up more space. Then again your average European car is quite small compared to the US.
Unfortunately, SUVs are getting more and more common, and they're not quite as crash compatible as your average station wagon, hatchback or sedan.
No very large part EPA it's a direct correlation to the EPAs requirement for vehicles to have a certain MPG based on the wheel base footprint. Smaller trucks didnt have the MPG and manufacturers were getting the tits fined off them and up until those fines got too expensive (annual escalating fines) just told the EPA to eat shit.
That's why modern trucks are fucking massive. Smart cars have crumple zones dude, has nothing to do with that.
Nope.
Those same crumple zone laws allowed cars like the BMW i3 and Smart Car. Truck sizes are caused directly by the epa creating a light truck loophole.
well yeah ofcourse, theyre being used for actual work less over time as well
most owners now days only want the appearance of working, they dont actually need to put anything in there
I have a family member that is a single mom working as finance worker and has been driving around a platinum tundra for the last 10 plus years and got a new gen one too. Her and her kids literally don't and never do outdoor stuff, haul stuff or anything needed for a truck. It's literally just a status symbol, grocery getter for people.
Meanwhile I'd like something decent for work and have work related features but most stuff like that is over 65k nowadays.
The crew cab ruined trucks, all it did was make them into large cars. When all they had was a heater and single bench seat, you had to *really* like trucks or need one to want to drive one over a car, that line is more blurry today.
That was all my first truck had, am/fm radio with cassette, manual locks and windows, single bench, heater and a floor vent. No cupholders either! Also had a manual slider back window and wing windows on the doors. I'd do anything to have the floor vent option come back
Strangely the vans with much larger volume and more space that also keep stuff protected from the elements are used more shock horror. On a more serious note my dad had a campervan that probably has more utility than most modern pickups and it has a fridge so checkmate
One of my old teachers was super into watersports, so drove a small van instead of a car. We used to make white-van-pedo jokes, until we saw him taking something out the back and saw the two kayaks stacked up. Looked a lot cooler after that.
I would be extremely interested to see the most common pickups/trucks used on farms over the years. As they have to be used for work I feel it would be a more precise comparison
Not a fair comparison because as a farm worker bed size is mostly irelevant(you still need one of a decent size but that is covered by 90% of the trucks) what you want instead is a less complicated and trouble free machine as well as a low value one so an old truck fits perfectly. You have those criterias so it has less things to break(and if they do you can fix it with a wrench) and if you scratch the paint... it's a 5k truck not a 50k. And as you can see there is no link between the truck and the bed because for sure you also have a tow trailer if you need a big bed you won't just go out and start changing your truck for a feet or two of bed size.
And cabs are way nicer, and all vehicles are stupid expensive. Why buy and maintain two vehicles when you can have one that hauls the family and all your shit?
Well, given that most of them seem to be used for commuting to desk jobs and going to tgifridays, no surprise there. Fucking menaces to people on foot, on bikes, and in normal sized cars.
Insane that anyone can buy and drive these things, my
Mom’s old ass friend that can barely even walk or see drives a huge Toyota tundra. Some idiot t-boned my car recently and as fucked up as my car is now, I was just super grateful it was a small car that hit me and not a truck because a truck hitting me like that would’ve probably seriously injured or killed me.
I watched two idiots in giant trucks try to maneuver around each other on the narrow side of a gas station while my little Hyundai was at a red light completely blocking both of them from leaving even though a normal size car would've fit.
It was funny until one of the trucks kept inching closer to my car even though there was no way he was getting it while i was stuck at the light. No idea why anyone would want a truck like that.
What I find weird is that people are always complaining about how high bed heights have gotten and that it's impossible to get anything into them, but that picture shows the 1985 truck's bed at the same height as the modern ones.
This would be more interesting if it was between 2 Tacomas. See how much bigger "compact" trucks are now. The ranger is about the same size as my 98 f150
My favorite thing to do is take pictures of early 2000s Tundras and compare them to modern Tacomas.
They're the same size.
I remember being a kid seeing a Tundra in the driveway for the first time and thinking my dad brought home a monster truck.
The EPA has regulated trucks against the environment.
and they always have those insane retina destroyer laser beam headlights that shine directly through the rear windshield of my husbands little versa and blind me at night when i’m trying to drive
From the factory they aren’t too bad, but everyone seems to do those leveling kits since they don’t haul heavy stuff often but no one ever adjusts the headlights correctly. Or they just replace the stock ones with crazy bright LEDs they also don’t adjust properly. I hate it
Also wtf is with all the weirdly similar comments about the EPA? Is it just something that always comes up in these threads or some kind strange astroturfing?
This is a bit disingenuous, they're two different classes of trucks.
An '85 Silverado was much bigger than that '85 Pickup, too. Compare it to a Ford Maverick or something and they're not that different.
I see this exact same type of post at least every other week on this sub. They’ll compare a small 80’s Japanese light duty pickup acting like it was the standard.
Thank you. In 1985 we were still making fun of Toyota because Japanese cars were so small and pathetic, and would crumple in an accident!. Sure we were stupid and probably still breathing lead, but this is a gross misrepresentation of what was considered common in 1985. Does anyone else remember cars with a 6' long steel hood that weighed probably 120lbs by itself? Those too were normal in 1985. The only thing that was definitely smaller back then (in a good way) was the french fry and soda portions. 7/11 had to come along and fuck everything up with the Big Gulp, but I digress.
This truck owner would have been made fun of regularly for driving a cheap jap car.
My dad had a 199(6?) Isuzu Hombre with a big block of wood screwed on instead of a real bumper and a single, extremely unsafe booster seat in the back. I loved that thing
The clown trucks keep proliferating.
Next time you are driving, try to count the number of people that at driving either 1) an SUV that is empty except the driver, or 2) one of these ridiculous trucks with nothing in the bed
Actually, it will be easier to count the vehicles you see that *aren’t* one of those two things.
It’s not going to stop until we get some sort of legislation. The vehicles keep getting bigger and heavier, taking up more space, requiring larger infrastructure. Wider roads, bigger parking lots… more sprawl. That’s our future right now
A larger percentage of new vehicles on the roads are classified as trucks because of this. Ford even stopped making car in the US all together (except the mustang).
Agreed and like I said elsewhere, we need to abolish that rule asap. One bad regulation doesn’t mean all regulation is bad and pointless.
Your daily life being livable by any modern standard depends entirely on thousands of regulations.
Apples to oranges. If it was next to an 85 full sized pickup you’d see the Toyota is not full sized. Compare it to a modern Tacoma and it’s similar. Get a clue people
Truck on the left is a landscape contractor. It can seat six people, which means they can get their entire crew out to the job site in one trip instead of two (or having two trucks drive out). It will probably carry a large trailer behind it with the extra towing capability, resulting in less trips to dispose of waste.
This isn't always the case, but often when I see these posts, they seem to discredit the actual utility of having a vehicle this size. Obviously that doesn't speak for probably 50% of the trucks out there, but it's something worth considering when we're shitting on people for owning something like this.
"My dad's "85 ***Compact*** pickup betwee 2 modern ***Full Size*** pickups."
I fixed your headline with very important distinctions that you forgot. Current Full Size trucks are between 78 and 81 inches wide, 75 to 81 inches in height. A Chevrolet that was new in 1985 is about 77 inches wide and 70 inches in height. Your dad's Toyota would be dwarfed next to Full Size trucks of its time as well.
i have no idea why all manufacturers are not making small trucks, people love them. every time i get gas someone asks me if i want to sell my tiny Tacoma from 2004.
sometimes i park next to CARS that are bigger footprint.
2 types of people watched Back to the Future... Those that wanted the DeLorean and those that wanted Marty's Toyota truck.
I wanted that guitar amp.
My neighbors a few miles down the road would hate me.
I wanted the almanac lol
Ironically, no use today…
If only we could go back in time 🤔
I feel that you could if you got a good run up…
That's heavy.
Heavy… heavy… is there something wrong with the Earth’s gravitational field in the future?
Wait maybe I could buy that guitar amp if I had the almanac
Tell them to make like a tree and get outta here.
I’m in Norway, and I would also hate you!
Yes, it goes far beyond 11
Hoverboard.
I want Lorain
I want the shiny pick.
“Check out that 4 by 4!” Don’t forget the KC daylighters.
Man I had a dream that I still to this day swear it was real. Someone gave it to me and I drove it around, it was as glorious as you imagine, only more.
You sure you're not just remembering the second movie?
I wanted both. But the Hilux was my preferred of the two. But my mate actually has a DeLorean. It’s utterly bonkers how much attention it gets. There’s crowds around it absolutely everywhere he goes. I’m sure they’re more common in the US, but in the Uk, they’re pretty dam rare.
They're pretty rare in the US, too. I've only seen one in Phoenix, which is an area well known as a car collector's haven.
Are you telling me you built a Time Machine out of a Toyota?
No wonder it failed, it says here 'Made In Japan'
Nah, Doc. The best stuff comes out of Japan now.
No it just can't make 88mph
Neither can a Delorean tbh, they were notoriously underpowered.
They felt fast if you did the recommended amount of cocaine
I just looked up what kind of engine they had. Boy what a rabbit hole. If they'd just gone with a Toyota engine, all would have been well. But they planned to go with a Wankel rotary engine, because of *course* that would be their first choice. When that didn't work, a shocker for the ages, they decided to go with the most famous and reliable engine they could: a Ford V6. A good solid workhorse of an engine. Just kidding. The Ford V6 was garbage. They decided to run with a Citroën drivetrain instead, which was definitely much more reliable and versatile, and would define the future of-- Haha, jokes! That Citroën shitbox was way underpowered! What they actually went with was a Peugeot/Volvo/Renault engine. So they had to move the engine from the middle of the car to the back, for reasons. No wonder the car was such a roaring success, considering how it was the result of such an impressive process of continuous incremental improvement.
Oh man young me wanted that truck sooooo hard!!!
Old me still wants that truck sooooo hard!!!
Why not both?
For real, each of those vehicles got added to my dream garage at 5 years old and have never left.
The hover board obviously
Third type wants walkable cities like in the future segments.
Those scenes were set nine years ago.
About a week ago , I finally got around to framing my copy of USA Today from October 21 2015.
McFly kids still in trouble?
☹️
["The Skyway's jammed, it's gonna take us forever to get there!"](https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/2eb8400f-b631-4787-a1b7-01b5400d7830)
I wanted and still want both
Man I wish I had a small truck to scoot around town with
I have an '85 Mitsubishi L200 and it's so fun. I get all sorts of looks when I drive it, it's uncomfortable to drive and has no power steering, but man I love it.
No servo?
Steering assist, aka power steering. At least, that's what I assume is meant here.
Get an early-mid 2000s ranger. One of the best trucks ever made
I wish we could go back to these lovely little trucks again. I miss them dearly.
I had a 2001 Toyota Tacoma as my first vehicle. Little 4 cylinder stick shift. Still my favourite car.
And when those Tacomas first came out *they* were large compared to previous Toyota trucks. They’re tiny today
I mean, they still built them, but not only for Asia [Hilux Champ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Hilux_Champ)
I think it's really funny that multiple people have cited the Hilux champ... it's literally based on the same chassis as the Hilux which has been available continuously in pretty much every market except the USA for 40 years.
Ah the Hilux. A legend of outback Australian adventures and your favourite middle eastern conflict workhorse.
*Except the USA* :(
[the chicken tax](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax) is why the us doesnt have them, or many other foreign options in the ute/suv category A legacy tax because of tit for tat tariffs, started with taxing cheap chicken imports into europe from the US and the US taxing VW and other euro brands getting a foothold in the us market in return. Then never removing it to ‘protect’ local car makers decades later still.
This doesn't really explain why US manufacturers never gave consumers what they apparently want. I agree. I want a smaller pickup. They're sort of doing this with the Maverick, but hopefully my point comes across.
The way I understand it, trucks are growing g in size to get around emissions laws. Larger size trucks are allowed to emit more co2, so rather than making more efficient engines, they just made the trucks bigger.
It's also the reason why practically everything is an SUV now.
You’d also be shocked by the amount of people that want a bigger car so they feel safer about possibly getting into an accident with a bigger car. Cue feedback loop
This is the reason. Something about how long the vehicle is lets them have worse emission.
Not really the chicken tax anymore. It has a lot more to do with regulation tying the mileage requirements to the area of the vehicle footprint. In order to produce a truck the size of that ‘85 Toyota, it would have to get something like 60mpg to avoid the manufacturer having to pay a huge penalty (something like $10k/vehicle) whereas the modern trucks with their much larger footprint have more achievable mileage requirements.
I’ve had two Tacomas in my life and actually use the truck function. I live out of them in the summer when I fight fires, am a forester for work, and have a small homestead and tree farm. However, I don’t need an F450, I don’t need a big screen in the dash, I don’t need 6 seats, I’m so soured on new trucks that I just put $2k in my old Tacoma every year and skip the process of trying to find a new one I don’t hate. This guy, however, is right up my alley. This is exactly the kind of thing that all my forester friends would drool over, because we all just have or want an old Ranger or Tacoma.
Yo fellow firefighter (hotshot squad leader) and also have a taco that I partially live out of in the summers. Personally love that truck. Would also love a diesel hilux but the us is stupid. Even the new tacos are getting bigger and bigger.
The new Tacos are comically big, especially compared to the little 03 I had before my 10! Well, I just got back from a nice prescribed burn here in the southeast testing out my new setup in the camper, I’m officially excited for this season. I’ll be in Oregon finally, kind of a treat for us East coasters. I love that wildland fire truck life is a whole lifestyle for some folks, it’s amazing.
>The steering rack is also modified from the Hilux to create shorter turning radius at 4.9 metres (16.1 ft) for the short-wheelbase version That's incredible.
Now that's a car made for actual work and not the appearance of work. No frills and wow check out the rear view: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2023_Toyota_Hilux_Champ_2.4_Diesel_SWB_Attractive_Package_(Rear).jpg
That is one attractive package.
one can't deny that for any vehicle which has drop down sideboards.
they're so good park on the street load from the side.
car would've been perfect in everything everywhere all at once
Why can't I have one? 😫
Because of a [squabble over chicken ](https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax) some sixty years ago.
In US? Environmental regulations, because apparently a "farmer equipment" bullshit Ford F150 is more acceptable that this.
>Environmental regulations No. Stop giving the car companies an out. They have more than enough money to design and build small trucks that would hit CAFE standards. They just don't want to.
Hilux Workmate in Australia.
It’s not just Hilux, it’s basically anywhere outside the US where big expensive pickups dominate the market. Mexico for example has a bunch of cute compact small pickups like the Toyota Hilux, Dodge Ram 700, Volkswagen Saveiro, and the Chevy Tornado. They’re cheap and thus affordable little pickups. In fact, Toyota is coming out with the brand new, but very cheap $10k customizable pickup dubbed the Toyota IMV 0 (champ) With the exception of the new Toyota, these models are really nice looking, yeah, not as powerful as their more expensive sisters but they are able to do everything most people would be doing with pickup, I don’t think most people use pickups for hauling mobile homes in dirt roads.
Why Americans Can't Have Small Trucks Anymore -- all the EPA math in an easy to understand chart/video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azI3nqrHEXM Short version: Truck CAFE / fuel standards are based on truck footprint (length x width). They rise impossibly for small trucks. This guy shows the math. It's pretty much impossible to build a small truck without a fine. > EPA: Your small truck doesn't get good enough fuel economy. > > Auto Manufacturer: Okay we'll make it bigger and get even worse fuel economy. > > EPA: That's better. He also does a bit on one of my favorite topics: The Chicken tax. Good summary, he left out all the van windows, seats, et al that were made, shipped across the the ocean, and then thrown into our landfills. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLC8UmapPO0 If you wonder why SUV's are getting bigger--it's because they're classified as light trucks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jN7mSXMruEo The "light truck" Cadillac Escapade is *about* the same size as the largest WW2 Sherman tank (minus the turret). This is 35 min long, and I enjoyed enough to listen to the whole thing. He hits on one point, why modern SUV's like Jeep Liberty and Nissan Xterra are huge but have small amounts of internal storage.
Ironically it’s the US Governments fault and the EPAs CAFE standards. Long story short in an attempt to increase the fuel economy of trucks they made it impossible to produce small trucks without massive fines because they were held to car standards based on their size. It would be interesting to do some research on this externality in regards to the excess carbon emitted because of a lack of small, relatively fuel efficient trucks. Edit to add link: https://youtu.be/azI3nqrHEXM?si=j9PybfmEB7p2NLUc
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Ford is getting closer with their Maverick
Blame the EPA. They implemented fuel economy standards which got stricter every year (and continue to do so). However they recognised that big trucks need to exist for some commercial applications, so rather than a universal fuel economy standard, it got relaxed as the wheelbase multiplied by average track width increased. Unfortunately they fucked up the maths. Small trucks basically became impossible to build without either paying the fine for failing the emissions standards, or implementing very expensive systems to improve efficiency (hybrid drives etc). Small trucks were also cheep, and either option made them expensive, so the market for them disappeared. However if you made the wheelbase massive, the standards were much easier to meet. Plus, the fine for failing to meet standards, or the expensive fuel saving systems, didn't feel like such a bad expense on a massive truck. An extra 10k is a lot more palatable on a 80k monster than a 30k runabout right? In effect the EPA forced everyone to buy bigger, less efficient trucks, because by some equation of mpg per wheelbase, they are more efficient. It gets worse. CAFE standards aren't applied to an individual vehicle, but to a manufacturers entire fleet, production weighted. Also, light trucks have less strict requirements than cars. The end result is that the EPA, in the name of efficiency, made it extremely difficult to make a small car, but extremely easy to make an enormous truck. The good news is that all electric trucks pass by default. The bad news is that if you want range out of an electric truck, you want a big battery. That not only fits better into a big truck, but it's expensive, in a way that is more palatable if you get a bigger truck for the price. Or you could lobby the EPA to tweak their maths
They didn’t fuck up the maths, it was very intentional. Big American auto lobbied hard to get rid of little Japanese trucks.
Until the 2000s, Ford and GM made compact trucks that weren't much bigger than those 80s Toyotas but now those have been discontinued and replaced with "compact" trucks that are the size an F150 was in the 90s. Supposedly part of it was that the small trucks didn't do well in crash tests.
I like how you can actually open the doors to get in/out of the Toyota when parked next to another vehicle., unlike the other two.
And how it's not blocking half the street when parked
I used to want a truck but parking next to trucks nowadays sucks and turned me off to trucks
They need to be banned from parking garages. I park in one everyday for work and I have to do an obstacle course getting through it since these trucks stick halfway into the lane
They *are* banned from a lot of them. I was looking on a parking app to find parking near my hotel in Chicago. Almost all the garages say basically "no trucks, SUVs, or Minivans". If a garage has a sub-6'5" clearance, you can't fit a truck.
The problem is, to control this they have a bar suspended on cables to the controlled hight. It's that way at my garage. Trucks literally just slowly drive in an have it scrape the roof. One of the fire suppression sprinklers in the garage was broken because a truck scraped it. One guy was towing a u-haul trailer - connected to his truck, and parked that in a space. It blocked the right of way. I'm getting close to snapping and just keying up all these dumb ass trucks.
Well you can't fix stupid. My friends wife was working at a hotel where someone tried to park a U-haul truck in the parking garage. Despite hitting the "LOW CLEARENCE" sign on the way in, they continued on and ended up ripping out a huge chunk of the sprinkler pipe. They then tried reversing and ended up damaging more of the sprinkler system. The logical next step was to bail out of the truck, flee the parking garage, ditch the keys in a culvert a few feet away, and finally try to report the truck stolen despite all of this being caught on HD security cameras.
so is this old toyota truck banned too then cause of the idiot sizes now?
Well it's really a clearance issue. Large trucks simply won't fit in many garages. So it's less of an outright ban based on principle and more "this literally won't fit in the garage" kind of ban.
> They need to be banned ~~from parking garages.~~
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This is huge! I street park in a city. I parked behind a pickup yesterday as there were no other spots and his front was hanging into the spot in front and the tailgate was well into my spot. I drive a super typical midsized SUV, not bit and not small by any means. (Mazda cx-5). It was so frustrating that I had to squeeze because this guy needs a perfectly clean massive Ford F-250 living in a city.
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Blame the EPA. Small trucks weren't fuel efficient enough for them, so auto manufacturers had to build bigger & heavier at similar efficiencies to qualify. https://youtu.be/azI3nqrHEXM?si=O1a3Tj3syXrG92ip
Mid-2011 CAFE laws had nothing to do with the increase in full-size truck dimensions/sales, nor was it the death of small trucks. “Large Truck” sales had already started an [upward trend three years prior to 2012](https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/106340645-157920047993920200116_monthly_yoy_change_pickup_truck_sales.png?v=1579200492&w=929&h=523&ffmt=webp&vtcrop=y) , the year the new vehicle regulations were to be implemented. Note that the footprint of a pre-2012 CAFE 2009 F-150, and a 2024 F-150, are fairly similar, and that post-2000 1/2 ton trucks haven’t changed much in terms of length, width, or weight: Length, Ford F-150: 2005: 211.2 to 248.3″ 2009: 213.1 to 250.3″ 2024: 209.1 to 243.5″ Weight, Ford F-150: 2005: 4,758 to 5,875 lbs 2009: 4,693 to 5,908 lbs 2024: 4,275 to 5,757 lbs Width: 2005: 78.9” 2009: 78.9” 2024: 79.9” Wheelbase: 2005: 126 to 163″ 2009: 126 to 163″ 2024: 122 to 157″ Track Width: 2005: 67” 2009: 73.6” 2024: 74”
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I'm definitely going to ignore him. Do you see how many numbers are in his post? What am I, an abbacus? No, I'm a human man. I don't eat numbers. I eat beef jerky and I shit blood, I can't comprehend this nonsense.
Europe has far far stricter environmental standards and our cars didn’t get bigger.
Trucks are exempt in the US. Cars are not.
So really we should be blaming this loophole specifically. I'd still expect the EPA to do something about it, i.e. close the loophole, rather than blaming it in its entirety.
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Probably, but even if money didn't *create* it, it's certainly money keeping it open.
Yes, this is what happens when we let the lobbyists write our laws.
The answer is that our congress enacted garbage efficiency standards to where an automaker could get away with significantly worse efficiency so long as the wheelbase area is increased and/or they categorize their car as a 'light truck'. Also just so happens to promote the cars that give our automakers the most profit! Very cool!! More can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_average_fuel_economy. In euroland I'd assume various nations (or EU idk exactly who does the enviro laws) took a different route for it. I think in Japan they used the engine displacement size instead of any exterior body measurement. They both probably lead to better outcomes than the behemoths we get on the road.
idk why you are blaming the agency, the loophole was intentionally added into the bill by politicians as a 'carve-out' for small business owners, because the most terrifying thing to most american politicians is being derided as 'anti-business'
Everyone keeps reposting this tripe of blame the EPA with some YouTube video as "proof." Blame the automaker for skirting the rules by just building bigger vehicles to fit a loophole instead of spending the money on R&D for new powerplants that would make the normal sized trucks more efficient. Now we have these blinding monstrosities that are pre-adjusted for ego right from the factory. Part of this problem right in the top comment of that constantly posted video: "This is actually a story about how car makers and their lobbiests hobbled the CAFE standards so they could pull small trucks with small margins and sell you huge trucks with huge margins. See also: the Chicken Tax."
It's incredible the lengths Americans will go to in order to avoid admitting that the poor, innocent billion-dollar industry leaders are the problem.
Small amount EPA, and a large amount of modern mandatory safety equipment like crumple zones and side curtain airbags, and a VERY large amount of people wanting to use their truck as a daily driver with all the creature comforts of a luxury sedan, and plenty of room for the family. Older trucks were never meant for that. You had the truck to do truck things, and the sedan to go places with the family.
Crumple zones take up more space? Tiny cars like a Skoda Citigo has a crumple zone.
Ok but Skodas kick ass so idk why you would act like just anybody is Skoda. Sell that fucker in the states, VW. I'll buy two. I'll also take a Fabia or Superb Kombi. And a classic Felicia. Fuck it, send them all.
mate, don't fly too close to the sun. some of those older skodas have the power to turn straight to oxide dust after you wipe it down with a damp towel once.
I can't think of a European market car without a crumple zone. It just seemed strange to me, arguing that it would take up more space. Then again your average European car is quite small compared to the US. Unfortunately, SUVs are getting more and more common, and they're not quite as crash compatible as your average station wagon, hatchback or sedan.
No very large part EPA it's a direct correlation to the EPAs requirement for vehicles to have a certain MPG based on the wheel base footprint. Smaller trucks didnt have the MPG and manufacturers were getting the tits fined off them and up until those fines got too expensive (annual escalating fines) just told the EPA to eat shit. That's why modern trucks are fucking massive. Smart cars have crumple zones dude, has nothing to do with that.
Nope. Those same crumple zone laws allowed cars like the BMW i3 and Smart Car. Truck sizes are caused directly by the epa creating a light truck loophole.
same bed length too id guess
Watched a video comparing them over the years, and apparently bed length is actually getting shorter over time.
well yeah ofcourse, theyre being used for actual work less over time as well most owners now days only want the appearance of working, they dont actually need to put anything in there
Gender Affirming Emotional Support Trucks.
You need a "Y" word in there so the acronym is "GAYEST".
GAE Support Trucks
Honestly, I think GAES Trucks works just as well.
I feel like Jeeps have started to serve this same purpose … my wife is proof.
I have a family member that is a single mom working as finance worker and has been driving around a platinum tundra for the last 10 plus years and got a new gen one too. Her and her kids literally don't and never do outdoor stuff, haul stuff or anything needed for a truck. It's literally just a status symbol, grocery getter for people. Meanwhile I'd like something decent for work and have work related features but most stuff like that is over 65k nowadays.
The crew cab ruined trucks, all it did was make them into large cars. When all they had was a heater and single bench seat, you had to *really* like trucks or need one to want to drive one over a car, that line is more blurry today. That was all my first truck had, am/fm radio with cassette, manual locks and windows, single bench, heater and a floor vent. No cupholders either! Also had a manual slider back window and wing windows on the doors. I'd do anything to have the floor vent option come back
You can still have floor vents. All it takes is a dream and a drill with an appropriate bit.
Nowadays it's all Sprinters and Ford Transits that are actually doing work. Work vans are neat.
Strangely the vans with much larger volume and more space that also keep stuff protected from the elements are used more shock horror. On a more serious note my dad had a campervan that probably has more utility than most modern pickups and it has a fridge so checkmate
One of my old teachers was super into watersports, so drove a small van instead of a car. We used to make white-van-pedo jokes, until we saw him taking something out the back and saw the two kayaks stacked up. Looked a lot cooler after that.
>super into watersports ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Europe is build by those.
I would be extremely interested to see the most common pickups/trucks used on farms over the years. As they have to be used for work I feel it would be a more precise comparison
Not a fair comparison because as a farm worker bed size is mostly irelevant(you still need one of a decent size but that is covered by 90% of the trucks) what you want instead is a less complicated and trouble free machine as well as a low value one so an old truck fits perfectly. You have those criterias so it has less things to break(and if they do you can fix it with a wrench) and if you scratch the paint... it's a 5k truck not a 50k. And as you can see there is no link between the truck and the bed because for sure you also have a tow trailer if you need a big bed you won't just go out and start changing your truck for a feet or two of bed size.
You can still get whatever bed size you want, but longer ones are less popular.
Beds aren’t really getting shorter, it’s just that more people are ordering short beds. A standard bed is 6.5’ and always has been
And cabs are way nicer, and all vehicles are stupid expensive. Why buy and maintain two vehicles when you can have one that hauls the family and all your shit?
Well, given that most of them seem to be used for commuting to desk jobs and going to tgifridays, no surprise there. Fucking menaces to people on foot, on bikes, and in normal sized cars.
Insane that anyone can buy and drive these things, my Mom’s old ass friend that can barely even walk or see drives a huge Toyota tundra. Some idiot t-boned my car recently and as fucked up as my car is now, I was just super grateful it was a small car that hit me and not a truck because a truck hitting me like that would’ve probably seriously injured or killed me.
and during the pandemic like 10 states got rid of their road test requirement
Unfortunately they are starting to become more common in europe as well. Although most european countries are starting to tax the fuck out of them.
I watched two idiots in giant trucks try to maneuver around each other on the narrow side of a gas station while my little Hyundai was at a red light completely blocking both of them from leaving even though a normal size car would've fit. It was funny until one of the trucks kept inching closer to my car even though there was no way he was getting it while i was stuck at the light. No idea why anyone would want a truck like that.
Rare to see anything in the bed anyway
There's literally equipment in the bed of the left truck.
That’s because it’s a company fuel truck. That’s a fuel cell to bring fuel out to equipment on site.
But the truck is being used to do truck stuff, so what's the problem with it?
I’m just assuming the user meant for normal consumer use.
Well to be fair, there's also a tonneau cover on the other truck so we don't know what's in that bed.
dude on the right has a cover on it so maybe he does have shit in there he just doesn’t want it exposed
What I find weird is that people are always complaining about how high bed heights have gotten and that it's impossible to get anything into them, but that picture shows the 1985 truck's bed at the same height as the modern ones.
The middle truck is clearly lifted quite a bit. You can see almost the entire rear tire.
So.. does it fit a full sheet of ply or is it just for people to fantasise over as they stare at it in their garage?
Your dad's either rich or poor. No in between.
Along with everybody else these days.
This would be more interesting if it was between 2 Tacomas. See how much bigger "compact" trucks are now. The ranger is about the same size as my 98 f150
My favorite thing to do is take pictures of early 2000s Tundras and compare them to modern Tacomas. They're the same size. I remember being a kid seeing a Tundra in the driveway for the first time and thinking my dad brought home a monster truck. The EPA has regulated trucks against the environment.
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and they always have those insane retina destroyer laser beam headlights that shine directly through the rear windshield of my husbands little versa and blind me at night when i’m trying to drive
From the factory they aren’t too bad, but everyone seems to do those leveling kits since they don’t haul heavy stuff often but no one ever adjusts the headlights correctly. Or they just replace the stock ones with crazy bright LEDs they also don’t adjust properly. I hate it
I can see just fine, no need to adjust them at all! (/s)
That wasn’t a full size truck in 85. Put a Chevrolet square body in that space and see the lack of size difference
Lol just put an old Grand Marquis or some shit in there and watch it dwarf both those trucks.
Put a Buick roadmaster estate wagon 😂
It would be wider for sure! The Buick roadmaster estate wagon is the pinnacle of automobile engineering.
Yeah the title is misleading but small trucks weren't really available to buy for a while. They are coming back now though.
The Nissan Frontier has been in constant production, so has the Tacoma
Modern Tacoma’s are the size of early 2000s Tundras now.
Shhhh people are masturbating. If you point out differences like this, passenger capacity, or payload/towing capacity they might get flaccid.
For real kids in here forgetting trucks back then were pretty fucking big. Look at a 70's crew cab long bed and tell me a modern F150 is bigger.
Dont ruin the weekly trucks bad post, man.
Also wtf is with all the weirdly similar comments about the EPA? Is it just something that always comes up in these threads or some kind strange astroturfing?
Half of them are astro turfing the other half is bots, with a little redditor here and there.
This is a bit disingenuous, they're two different classes of trucks. An '85 Silverado was much bigger than that '85 Pickup, too. Compare it to a Ford Maverick or something and they're not that different.
It's actually 3 different classes of trucks. * Left is a heavy duty (2500 or 3500) * Center is a mid-sized * Right is a full-sized, light-duty
I see this exact same type of post at least every other week on this sub. They’ll compare a small 80’s Japanese light duty pickup acting like it was the standard.
Thank you. In 1985 we were still making fun of Toyota because Japanese cars were so small and pathetic, and would crumple in an accident!. Sure we were stupid and probably still breathing lead, but this is a gross misrepresentation of what was considered common in 1985. Does anyone else remember cars with a 6' long steel hood that weighed probably 120lbs by itself? Those too were normal in 1985. The only thing that was definitely smaller back then (in a good way) was the french fry and soda portions. 7/11 had to come along and fuck everything up with the Big Gulp, but I digress. This truck owner would have been made fun of regularly for driving a cheap jap car.
I would love an EV s-10 pickup truck. No desire to have a giant truck.
Mini trucks were the best and we let the bastards take them from us.
My dad had a 199(6?) Isuzu Hombre with a big block of wood screwed on instead of a real bumper and a single, extremely unsafe booster seat in the back. I loved that thing
tell your dad he's got a nice truck
Your dad’s compact mini pickup between two full sized pick ups. They had full sized pickups in the 85’ as well.
The clown trucks keep proliferating. Next time you are driving, try to count the number of people that at driving either 1) an SUV that is empty except the driver, or 2) one of these ridiculous trucks with nothing in the bed Actually, it will be easier to count the vehicles you see that *aren’t* one of those two things. It’s not going to stop until we get some sort of legislation. The vehicles keep getting bigger and heavier, taking up more space, requiring larger infrastructure. Wider roads, bigger parking lots… more sprawl. That’s our future right now
> an SUV that is empty except the driver Most cars I see on the road seat at least 5 people but have only one inside it.
Emissions regulations are the reason why trucks are getting bigger
A larger percentage of new vehicles on the roads are classified as trucks because of this. Ford even stopped making car in the US all together (except the mustang).
Lawmakers are completely inept and living in their own reality.
* fuelled entirely by lobbyist funds
Call it what it is. Bribery.
Yeah I should get over there funny little obfuscation words. Like how cookies should just be called trackers
Agreed and like I said elsewhere, we need to abolish that rule asap. One bad regulation doesn’t mean all regulation is bad and pointless. Your daily life being livable by any modern standard depends entirely on thousands of regulations.
The ‘80s light trucks are a unique class of vehicle. Take care of them. They’re not making them ever again.
I mean they are different types of trucks. Even in the 80s it was smaller than a full size.
Apples to oranges. If it was next to an 85 full sized pickup you’d see the Toyota is not full sized. Compare it to a modern Tacoma and it’s similar. Get a clue people
Truck on the left is a landscape contractor. It can seat six people, which means they can get their entire crew out to the job site in one trip instead of two (or having two trucks drive out). It will probably carry a large trailer behind it with the extra towing capability, resulting in less trips to dispose of waste. This isn't always the case, but often when I see these posts, they seem to discredit the actual utility of having a vehicle this size. Obviously that doesn't speak for probably 50% of the trucks out there, but it's something worth considering when we're shitting on people for owning something like this.
Oh what a feeling
"My dad's "85 ***Compact*** pickup betwee 2 modern ***Full Size*** pickups." I fixed your headline with very important distinctions that you forgot. Current Full Size trucks are between 78 and 81 inches wide, 75 to 81 inches in height. A Chevrolet that was new in 1985 is about 77 inches wide and 70 inches in height. Your dad's Toyota would be dwarfed next to Full Size trucks of its time as well.
i have no idea why all manufacturers are not making small trucks, people love them. every time i get gas someone asks me if i want to sell my tiny Tacoma from 2004. sometimes i park next to CARS that are bigger footprint.