Car enthusiasts and the general public often come at odds with their desires. A typical car buyer might get a white crossover while an enthusiast prefers a brown wagon. Enthusiasts like their beds long, their cabs regular, and their beds low, but everyone else keeps buying short bed crew cab trucks that tower over everything else.
Griffin guessed the size of Ford’s $30,000 electric truck against the fan favorite Maverick. Some people were sad that neither truck has a regular cab version. Moonball96 makes a good point:
Y’all, give it up on the single cabs. They aren’t coming back, especially for a vehicle this size. Most buyers don’t want them, stopped buying them, and the market responded. I owned a 2006 single cab F-150 for ten years – I bought it because I was young and thought it looked cool (and yes, it did look cool). But I can be honest with myself, and that is, it just wasn’t a very usable vehicle especially after I started a family. Now I drive a crew cab Nissan Frontier, it’s still ‘small’ compared to a full size truck but it gives me extra space for the car seat and anything else I want to keep dry, and I can make the short bed work for weekend warrior runs to Home Depot.
And I know you can take my argument and run it through the wringer, tell me I don’t even need a truck and can be happy with a mini-van or something (looking at you Technology Connections).
But… I still like driving a truck, so my little Nissan is a happy compromise. No more single cab, but no sedan either.
Yes, there’s no shame in liking trucks even if you don’t “need” one. As for regular cab trucks, I adore them, too, but most buyers have already voted with their wallets, and they want four doors.
Rob Stercraw also has a good way to look at this new truck:
For all of those bemoaning its gargantuan size when compared with whatever mini truck from whatever specified era…
Hey, it’s a step in the right direction – I for one embrace the trend and hope it continues. I owned a 1st gen Geo Metro in the day and recently was behind one in traffic. They were small when I owned one 20 years ago but holy shit – now it is ridiculously tiny compared to literally EVERYTHING around it.
Luxobarge:
For easy comparison:
Ford Maverick. L: 200 in; H: 69 in; W: 73 in.
Ford “Ranchero” (est.). L: 196 in; H: 64 in; W: ?? in.
Slate Truck: L: 175 in; H: 69 in; W: 71 in.
Telo MT1: L: 152 in; H: 66 in; W: 73 in.
Thomas wrote about 1,500 kW charging in China. Donut Lab caught a stray from Mechjaz:
I’m waiting for the Donut Labs version where they slow it down because drivers were getting upset they didn’t have time to do more than slam an espresso while charging.
86-GL got weirdly specific:
Please, I need to drive 900 miles wearing a catheter to confront my romantic rival in our astronaut love triangle.
The linked Wikipedia article is wild!
Finally, Antti wrote about the eternal Chevy Express. StillNotATony once again advocates for an SS version:
I still say they should do a limited run of SS versions. The ExpreSS, if you will.
Bring back AWD, bolt a supercharger onto the LS, slam it, stiffen the suspension, and paint SS stripes down the middle.
C’mon, GM. You know you wanna…
Have a great evening, everyone!
Topshot graphic image: Nissan
Well, 4-door pickups didn’t exist when my brother and I were little. We rode, unrestrained in the bed, debris blowing in our eyes.
Now, some states don’t even allow a dog to ride unrestrained back there. I’m amazed my brother and I are still on the planet in our late 60s.
If I was going to buy a truck to use as my only vehicle, it would definitely be a crew cab. While the number of people who have ridden in the backseat of my Sportwagen in the past six years can be counted on one hand, having that enclosed backseat would still be my preference. An example, our usual haul of groceries would be a tight fit (assuming no passenger) in my 97 F150, which is a single cab. When it’s 95 degrees outside and the grocery is 20 minutes away, I don’t want to let everything bake in the bed on the way home. Our dog is the worst car passenger ever, she either needs to be buckled into the backseat or in her crate in the way back of my wagon. She’d cause an accident if she rode in the single cab truck with me. We don’t have kids, but that’s another reason single cabs can be a hard sell, even as a family’s second vehicle.
A single cab works for me because I have another vehicle to handle most of my day to day driving. I bought the truck to use around our property/home projects, and for that a single cab standard bed truck is perfect. But I certainly wouldn’t buy one new and would not have one as my only vehicle.
Oooooweeeee I feel like I threw some gasoline on a fire and ran off
I use the back seat in my CARS about twice a year, I have zero use for a full-size one in a truck. I think I last had a human in the backseat about two months ago when I had my mother and a friend in the car – probably only time this year. Pretty sure I have used the back seat in my BMW convertible twice since I have owned it. PITA to take the windblocker out.
The old narrow sideways jumpseats ala the extended cab Ranger are a perfect compromise to me. A bit of extra room for stuff in the cab/legroom up front, cram somebody back there in an emergency, but keep the overall length reasonable while keeping a useful bed length rather than a silly tea tray. But I would only ever use a truck for the most trucky of things anyway. And I am not averse to just taking two vehicles if necessary. Not every vehicle needs to be able to do everything, which is what leads to the ridiculousness of today. Different horses for different courses. Compromises just do everything badly.
And for that ExpreSS Van – not SS stripes – the A-team van stripe!
https://starcars.fandom.com/wiki/The_A-Team_Van
Sounds like you just shouldn’t have kids.
Lots of people are doing it….by NOT doing it.
I’ve had single cab short bed pickups over the last 30 plus years and still don’t have a need for a bigger cab. The cabs did get bigger with the 97+ F150, which gives alot more behind the seat room. The short wheelbase makes easier parking. I can throw my bike in the bed under the tonneau cover without removing the wheels and it is secure out of site. I still think any pickup with a bed under 6′ long is useless.
Four door pickups are great, until you need to haul something that is more than 3 1/2 ft long.
I still don’t understand why people buy pickups when they could buy a van instead and have as much load area, but covered.
Well, I suppose it’s something to do with CAFE.
This – so much this. Vans are just better at 95% of the things that people REALLY use pickups for. The Europeans are soooo much smarter than we are in this.
Open beds mostly suck. Better to get something enclosed, and if you need to haul something that won’t fit in it – rent a damned trailer. Even the small ones can carry more weight and are FAR easier to load than the average pickup truck. My little aluminum utility trailer can carry about as much weight as a 3/4ton with some corn-fed good old boys in it can in the bed while being barely a foot off the ground. But everyone in the US wants to pretend they are the Marlboro Man on his ranch taking feed to the steers or some damned thing, so here we are.
My last truck was a 06 Chevy 1500 reg cab long bed with a utility shell. Ladder rack on the utility shell was awesome. Can put long baseboard and 16′ sticks of lumber up there along with 12′ ladders.
Can’t do that with a cargo van and still get in a parking garage.
Also trucks are usually cheaper on the used market than vans.
That’s why some of us prefer trucks. Just work better in our particular case.
The “vans are always better” argument is tiresome. Each individual has different use cases and preferences.
There is a reason vans cost more. If you have some use case where an open bed is better – good for you! But that isn’t as common as people who buy trucks because they think it makes them look cool.
I’m always baffled by the number of people in the comments saying that what people actually need is a regular cab truck and a car. We are the weird ones here, most people do not want to own 6 cars. They want 1 vehicle that can hold the kids, move large and bulky items without having to play tetris. Tow your camper and haul your family on a camping trip. I like regular cab trucks, hell I own a regular cab truck, but if I’m honest I like the way it looks and that is a primary reason I bought it. If I had been more rational I would’ve bought a midsize crew cab when I needed a vehicle to tow my boat and then sold off my sedan. Trucks drive well enough for daily driving and I’m not sure why so many have so much trouble accepting that.
That raises an interesting point. With all the costs of owning 6 cars registration, inspection, maintenance, repairs etc if you don’t own 6 cars you could probably save yourself enough money to buy another car.
Math checks out.
In the subdivision I live (Around 60 houses), there are probably 30 pickup trucks (Some households have 2), only around 3 I have seen them pulling a RV, one kid tows his jet skis, the 2 Ford Mavericks and my Ranger use them for garden supplies and such, the rest are just people daily drivers or family cars. Only one regular cab owner by an older guy (he probably grew in the single cab era).
Pickup trucks are a lifestyle, the bigger the better mentality. None of them park in their garage.
“None of them park in their garage.”
And that is *literally* a big problem in neighborhoods with limited street parking.
This is a hill I will die on.
You want a pickup with extra doors and a shorter bed? Fine, nothing wrong with that. But I don’t. Lots of people don’t. And you used to be able to say “well, just buy a nice used one then!”, but it’s been a dozen years since anyone has sold a new small pickup with a single cab in the US & Canada. Used market availability is abysmal, and even if you do find a nice one, it’s still an old used truck. No warranty, probably no service history, but there is some loose change & a stick of gum under the seat.
It’s also gotten tough to up-sell people to a full-size truck of the same configuration because full-size trucks have gotten so bloated. You can’t see the front of the truck from the driver’s seat, or what’s immediately in front of the truck (have fun parking). And at 6’3″ I find that the top of the bedsides is rather high up, I don’t know how people of average or less-than-average height manage. As a last resort, you can lower the suspension, but that costs money, potentially voids warranties, and because these trucks are designed to ride high, they can look kinda goofy when you bring them back down to earth.
“But they can’t get a return on their investment!” BS. They need a different cab, and maybe a different frame & driveshaft (depending on exact configuration). Practically everything else is the same. And manufacturers used to make vehicles like this all the time, taking a mass-market platform and developing niche versions for discerning customers. They maybe sold 1 coupe for every 10 sedans, but they still made the coupe because it didn’t cost them hardly anything and it made for happy customers. Then someone high up figured out that they could just sell 11 sedans instead and save the money, and well, that was the beginning of the end. (This is an oversimplification, of course, but tell me it’s wrong.)
You are wrong. Tooling a new cab costs hundreds of millions of dollars. Money that simple does not come back when regular cabs sell in low single digit percentages. The extended cabs are almost gone for the same reason.
Regular cab midsize trucks are dead in the USA because they did not sell enough to bother making. It is that simple – no conspiracy – just accounting.
In the old days companies were willing to lose money on niche models. Times are different today companies are scrambling to make low single digit profit margins.
(Although in a recent interview a Nissan executive admitted that there is no positive business cars for the new Z but they did it anyway. Of course Nissan is also near bankruptcy so that isn’t a glowing recomendation)
Why tool for a new cab just dust off the old one and sell it as Retro.
How would you realistically do this even if the old cab design could meet current crash standards?
Are you going to spend many millions and years of development time to adapt the old cab to the new chassis? Or are you just going to continue to make the complete old Ranger? If you produce the old Ranger how? Are you going to add millions to the new line to make it more flexible so that it can made both the old and new versions on the same line or just keep the old line going to make 10,000 vehicles or fewer trucks per year.
None of the above makes any sense to sell a realistic number of regular cab Rangers and the people that want to buy an old regular cab Ranger would never pay what that very low volume truck would cost to produce it at a profit.
“Regular cab midsize trucks are dead in the USA because they did not sell enough to bother making.”
Is that true or is that group think? I can remember when everyone said that same thing about small convertibles – then the Miata showed that the real problem was a lack of good product, not a lack of a market.
Convertibles are a niche product segment that continues to decline.
Miata sales continue to decline and Mazda likely loses money on each one but they continue to sell them because it is their halo product and the only thing that still connects them to that “zoom zoom” image.
(Mazda sold less than 9000 Miatas in the USA last year)
Markets come and go. They sold over 50K Miatas when it was introduced, and over 430K worldwide during the NAs production run… back when the small convertible market had been starved of product.
Not too long ago the conventional wisdom was that small & mid-size pickups could never be very successful, and 2 wheel drive ones even less so. Yet Ford has sold 470,000 Mavericks in 5 years, 65% of them FWD.
Right now, the market feels starved for a single cab long bed truck.
I’ll roll with that. I don’t have the figures to confirm or deny, but it seems plausible. And that is indeed a lot of money. But manufacturers are still on occasion willing to write down BILLIONS to develop entire vehicles (or more significant platform variations) that also sell in single digit percentages.
But these manufacturers must see something in these endeavors. Maybe it’s testing new technology or features. Maybe it’s an experiment in styling. Maybe it’s a marketing exercise. Or maybe they just thought it’d be fun. But regardless, they are doing it, even in these uncertain times. It doesn’t take an MBA to realize that it’s best to make money on your products in order to stay in business, but there is an ongoing tradition of making less-than-profitable vehicles, which makes it hard to call a product unjustifiable based on that alone.
You listed 2 halo products. Yes, halo products still get the green light in good times if the automaker is in reasonable health if they have a high enough executive champion.
Toyota is most profitable automaker in the world. Yes, they do an occasional halo product but they are very disciplined in their regular linup.
The Hummer was a halo variant on a platform that was supposed to keep 2 factories busy. Yes, the Hummer and the electric truck portfolio has been a failure that has lost GM billions. That only means they need to tighten the belt more going forward.
A regular cab truck is not a halo product. It doesn’t nothing to enhance the image of a brand – it just loses money for no reason
I’m aware of that, and I was not trying to imply that a basic pickup truck is a “halo car”. I was simply blanking on other, more comparable products. But at any rate, it could still have a similar effect.
Since it’s been coming up a lot lately, let’s look at the Maverick. For all intents and purposes, that market segment had been dead since the ’80s (the Baja was a flop, and the Ridgeline is a significantly bigger vehicle (and still rarely tops 50k units a year)). You still had compact and later midsize trucks, but they’re not quite the same thing. Everyone just kinda accepted that car-based pickups were a dead end and we moved on. Then out of nowhere Ford dropped the Maverick, and they’ve sold almost half a million of them. People are excited about them. People are effectively paying over MSRP for them (as Ford has made a non-trivial increase to the MSRP). And now Ford is preparing to come out with a complementary electric vehicle.
I’m not saying a company would have the same degree of success with a smaller regular cab pickup, but I still think it’s something that could get some people excited, get them onto the dealer lot to check it out. They are guys that are holding onto their old trucks when they probably would’ve traded them in by now because no one makes an equivalent product to what they have. People are paying 8, 10, 12 grand, or even more for good examples of compact trucks now, not unlike how everyone jumped on the full-size “OBS” trucks from the late ’90s to early ’00s, because they’re getting tired of how newer trucks were/are being made.
The Maverick is a success because it is cheap, quad cab, and fuel efficient. The primary distinction was that it was the first hybrid truck available and more than 50% of sales are the hybrid.
It was an out of the box type product and Ford has been rewarded for doing something new. Hopefully the new electric truck will be a hit too.
Ford didn’t make a regular cab version of the Maverick because they know it wouldn’t sell enough to pay back the development and tooling costs. The same reason they dropped the extended cab on the Ranger when it was redesigned.
The last i read is Slate had over a 100,000 deposits on their truck, so at least a 100,000 people want a regular cab truck, other “truck” makers are just lazy dregs who don’t want to put in any actual effort.
No, no I don’t think I’ll give up on regular cab pickups, for the same reason I refuse to give up on coupes and convertibles: I like two doors.
I’ve owned three hatchbacks. The first one wasn’t available with 3 doors (when 3 door hatchbacks were still a thing), the second one was a 3 door (with lovely frameless windows) and the current one is a 5 door… because 3 door hatchbacks are no longer a thing.
I’ve had two El Caminos (which I’ve previously call the perfect amount of truck for my purposes), two Fieros, two Focus coupes, a Monte Carlo, and a Delta 88 convertible. The only reason I currently daily a Fusion (and broke my perfect record of two doors) is that is that finding a Miata or FR-S/BRZ/86
proved impossible. It’s fine, but I settled. I don’t need a sedan. The back seat has carried passengers exactly once in the four years I’ve owned it.
I have owned an Audi 80, MX-5, Giulietta, 1 Series 3 door, A110 and now a Clio. So I am at 50/50 currently. Hope next one tilts the count in favour of the 2/3 doors.
Five door hatch fan here too. Does everything I need, which admittedly isn’t arduous considering we’re retired with no kids and live in a condo. But it’s perfect to load up for a 3 week road trip.
Did not expect to get COTD for typing out a bunch of numbers, but I’ll take it!
I use my truck to haul crap and lumber around, not people. I need bed space, not seating. 99% of the time my 1 passenger seat is filled with tool bags and boxes of hardware. If I want seating I’ll buy and minivan or SUV. I didn’t buy it because it’s “looks cool” I bought it because I need to haul crap around for work. It’s all these people buying trucks who don’t need trucks who are ruining trucks.
Funny enough, the first crew cab trucks were work trucks… because that’s how the work crew got around. You can always tow a trailer for hauling more crap. You can’t legally tow a trailer for hauling more people.
Depends on what state you’re in.
And that is what is wrong with this world. We started this country with trailers for people, of course they were called wagons and they were pulled by a horse, but dammit that is a trailer because it was unpowered and hooked up to the pulling source.
Many SUVs are rated to tow trailers. Back in the 1970s I owned a 1969 Ford Country Squire station wagon that designed to haul the family and tow trailer. It’s the people who want the luxury of sedan but feel they look cooler in a truck, that have driven up prices of work trucks beyond the reach of the people who actually need trucks. Just get a car, and pay the damn delivery fee that one time a year you have something too big to fit in your trunk.
Before trucks became a social status item they were simple, basic, tools, used by trades people who needed them for work. Crew cab trucks were rare, uncomfortable, noisy, rough riding monsters nobody bought unless they really needed one. They were exclusively bought by businesses, not private owners. Now they have all the luxury of sedan, and cost more than your average luxury car. I’m looking forward to the day I can retire and no longer need a truck.
Jacked up 4 door sedans without a trunk lid are not trucks.
A 4 foot long bed is good for what?
Give me a regular cab, a bench seat and at least a 6’6″ short box and life would be good. if I need more seats I need another vehicle.
One big advantage of single-cab trucks is their (usually) shorter wheelbase and tighter turning circle, especially in urban areas.
Do what Subaru did and put some jump seats in the bed 😛
The only reason for a crew cab pickup is to fit more people. I don’t like people. The reason for a single row pickup is to say sorry don’t have the room. Sure it doesn’t work for a family but men are stopping dating women and women are stopping dating men, plus 150% of all marriages are ending in divorce. I see a large market coming for a single row pickup with a 6 foot bed.
Single cab, 8ft bed, my ideal truck for any situation.
Shit. I guess I’ll let my wife of 26 years know that our days are not only numbered but are far over due.
Nah you’re grandfathered in, as in old enough to be a grandfather lol
“Regular Cab Trucks Are Great Until You Need A Backseat: COTD”
I’m 55 years old and to this day I’ve never ‘needed‘ a back seat in a truck. In my old 1967 C10, at times we’d fit three or sometimes even four-across the bench seat. Luckily it was a 3-on-the-tree.
When my C10 rusted out and I got my S-10, I always had a car with a back seat as a 2nd vehicle in the rare case I ever needed to fit more than three people. Same goes with my El Camino and my GMC Canyon.
Today we have 6 vehicles. Three of them have one row of seats, the other three have a rear seat. Which is a decline from when we had four 2-doors and two 4-doors.
A perfect 6-vehicle fleet would consist of five 2-doors and one 4-door for that rare occasion we needed to fit more than the two of us in a vehicle.
How about 3 doors and 5 doors? I believe the hot hatch is due for a come back
Are there any 3 door hatchbacks (actually anywhere in the world?) available at all currently?
https://automobiles.honda.com/prelude
https://www.miniusa.com/model/2-door.html
Although I consider the Prelude more of a coupé, it’s true that there still is the hardtop Mini.
https://automobiles.honda.com/-/media/Honda-Automobiles/Vehicles/2026/Prelude/Gallery-OP/Interior/Modal/MY26_Honda_Prelude_Gallery_Interior_01_Modal.jpg
Definitely looks like a hatchback. Kind of like my old Monza hatchback from 1977 or so.
There’s “hatchback” the general form factor, and “hatchback” the technical term for a single-piece rear door that opens upward. The Prelude has a hatchback door, but I would not describe the car as a whole as a hatchback.
When I saw the Prelude, it reminded me of my old Monza, which was almost identical to this one.
So to me, they both look like hatchbacks. But maybe it was just camera angles, as I’ve never seen one of these new Preludes in person. It’s rare to see a Honda where I live.
Edit to add: I think the better term for cars like the Prelude and Monza would be a fastback coupe. This applies to that body style regardless of whether it has a hatch or a trunk.
I will cut people some slack for referring to a 3rd gen Nova or a current gen Civic as a hatchback, as all of the body styles are fastbacks, so that term isn’t really helpful in differentiating from the trunked sedans of the same model. But since that distinction is not necessary for the Prelude & Monza, I wouldn’t bother.
VW Polo (and other VAG machines based on the same chassis). Whatever the fuck a Hyundi INSTER is (it looks like a hatchback pretending to be an SUV). Nissan Micra, Renault 5.There’s probably some Chinese ones, but I don’t know what names to search for.
Huh, I hadn’t realised so many of the small hatchbacks had gone 5-door only these days. At least there’s plenty of old shitboxes for me to buy..
I now actually did a search (for the Spanish market). Only three (meaningful) options:
– Fiat 500
– Mini hadtop
– Toyota Yaris (GR)
Curiously the first two also available full BEVs.
Not sure I bet there are but I was thinking also about those sport cars with 1 door on 1 side and 2 doors on the other.
Trucks used to be cheap. Cars used to be cheap(er). When you figure a lot of the market can only afford one vehicle, that vehicle needs to do everything you can throw at it. All of a sudden a crew cab truck makes sense and a single cab doesn’t. Sure, there may be a market for one, but it’s the same size as the market for a 1000hp supercar. So Ford ain’t gonna make one unless they can charge 6 figures for it.
People forget. Compact trucks used to cost less than compact cars.
1987 Chevrolet Cavalier Pricing:
Original MSRP: Started at $7,995 for the base coupe and peaked at $14,186 for the RS Convertible.1987 Chevrolet S-10 Pricing:
Original MSRP: Started at $6,695 for the base EL trim and reached up to $11,429 for top-tier Extended Cab trims.The F*rd prices weren’t quite such a dramatic difference, but the trucks were still slightly cheaper.
1987 Ford Escort: Prices began at around $6,801 for a base 2-door hatchback and reached $9,229 for higher-tier options.1987 Ford Ranger: Prices started at $6,793 for the base ‘S’ Standard Cab and went up to $13,062 for fully loaded ‘STX’ 4WD Extended Cab configurationsThis is why people (and businesses) bought millions of compact trucks in the ’80s and ’90s. They just put toppers on them.
$7,000 in 1987 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $20,520.60 today, representing a cumulative price increase of 193.15%.
If companies made a regular-cab basic compact pickup and sold them for $20,500.00 they would sell like hotcakes in today’s market.
Manufacturers just do not want to sell a truck for $20,500 today, as they wouldn’t make as much money from them.
Winner winner chicken dinner!
The car makers created the “need” for people to own four door pickups because they can make boatloads of profit on them. (and skirt CAFE)
People went along with it.
Just buy a sedan. 97% of people don’t need a pickup.
Trucks also used to have fewer creature comforts than a car.
Which would be a perfect use scenario for a delivery truck. They’re for work.
They used to be for work. Now they are family vehicles – which explains the massively nicer interiors and higher prices.
Trucks are the only class of vehicle that like for like is actually more expensive today than 30 years ago.
What was a base C10 lacking that a base Malibu had, or a S10 vs a Cavalier?
Standard rear bumper comes to mind.
I was actually alive for the S10 and Cavalier era and old 80’s cars were the first cars of my youth.
A few things the Cavalier had that the S10 didn’t. Carpet, cloth seats instead of vinyl, sound deadening, and a rear suspension not based on a 1880’s wagon.
My 1987 S-15 Blazer was also SLOW – so slow that passing on a two lane road required timing and a running start even with the optional V6. My 1991 4 cylinder Cavalier Wagon was slow but not glacier slow.
I’m older than you, and to this day have also never “needed” a back seat in any of the pickups I’ve owned.
Yes, I had kids, friends and etc.
If you need a back seat you need a car.
No shame in driving a car, but marketing macho male culture has convinced a lot of folks they must have a four door pickup or bust.
The car makers aren’t your friend. They will upsale you into bigger, better and more “manly” so you’ll give them $925 bucks for 84 months. Then they can buy that condo in Vail and add on the dock at the house in the Hamptons.
And that’s why extended cab is perfection(ala S-10, Frontier before they ditched it, older rangers etc). I don’t have kids, but I do have a cat, and the extended area is perfect for her, groceries, stuff to keep safe. And in a pinch you have two jump seats. And best of all, a full 6 foot box. Perfection I say. It’s y’alls fault for not buying them enough.
The Frontier is still offered in a extended cab (King Cab).
You are correct that the blame lies on customers for the death of the extended cab Colorado and Ranger.
Mid-size trucks killing extended cabs was also due a big shift in what was considered an “extended cab”. Back in the ’80s, an extended cab on a midsizer was literately a cab that had been extended, typically without even adding or changing the doors. Some brands didn’t even really have seats back there, or if they did, it was a seat-beltless bootlocker or fold-out jump seat.
More modern ones with backward-swing doors and actual seats (even if it’s still cramped) didn’t come out until the late ’90s. Even second gen S10 extended cabs had jump seats back there.
I’m not sure I’d really say they were ever really alive if you ask me.
My wife’s first vehicle was a 1988 Ford Ranger with extended cab. Those jump seats were absolutely miserable.
Right, I had that mixed up with the Colorado that killed the extended cab in 2023. https://www.theautopian.com/the-new-chevrolet-colorado-promises-tons-of-kit-and-turbocharged-power-even-on-the-base-model/
I’m with you. Extended cab is perfect for a pickup. (I have an S-10 myself but it is the 3rd car/ranch truck. Can definitely fit more hay bales in it than even the largest wagon/what have you.)
As someone without a family, my friends have cars. They can drive themselves. In all four doors I have owned, the rear seats have been removed. DRIVE YOURSELF YOU LAZY CHILD! (is what I imagine I would say to my imagined child).
100%. I’ve always preferred small coupes for that same reason especially in college and early work life. If you make it uncomfortable for them they’re far less likely to always ask you to drive to lunch, walmart, etc.
I think I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve had more than one passenger in my car. Otherwise, the rear seats are empty, or holding cargo. I don’t particularly mind having a 4-door sedan, but I would happily go back to a 2-door coupe (or 3-door hatch) if the opportunity presented itself.
I have owned roadsters and 2 seater sportscars. And there is an added bonus to that, you don’t have to be the “taxi driver” to places!
I live a life that doesn’t need a crew cab. There are dozens of us (I bought a single cab from 1966)
Ackshually, there are dozens of people who need a crew cab.
Listen, I love love LOVE a regular cab. I grew up in them, I’ve worked out of them, I’ve owned them as business vehicles and personal ones.
The one and only reason antibody wants one is nostalgia and looks.
And when it comes down to actually purchasing a $40-$50k vehicle, you need a lot of justification to spend that kind of cash.
That second set of doors/ extra couple feet of closed, lockable storage is WELL worth sacrificing a couple feet of bed space for. People love to suggest contractor type jobs as the use case for needing an 8 foot bed, but guess what contractors actually use?
A crew cab with a set of racks that extend over the cab.
The only single cab trucks used in the work world anymore are pilot trucks, townships that only employ 2 people, and spare vehicles for utility companies.
For every contractor using a roof rack I generally see 3 contractors using a minivan. Oddly enough they really like Toyota Sienna’s. They generally fit more than a truck, have comparable payload ratings, and are far easier to load and unload.
This. Trades are usually better served with a van. Lockable, secure space that is flexible.
Certainly now with how high they sit. A basic truck now sits higher than a lifted truck 20 years ago
The three-body problem continues to delight and confound. There is no general solution, but there are lots of specific cases with elegant representations.
The same is true in physics.
COTD of a COTD! . there’s a 9 dimensional sophon with your name on it. Or Jon Lovitz. I’d go dark just to be safe
I will die on ExpreSS Hill…
A worthy hill to die on.
I would join you but I’m dying on far too many hills at the moment.
Considering the 6.6l L8T makes 401 hp already, I can only imagine GM execs/engineers truly mad with power after putting the final touches on the ExpreSS.
Separately, I must decry two features of the Express that should have been changed…first, it has among the worst cupholder-to-occupant ratios of any vehicle with at least one cupholder. The entire back gets two. Two! Whether you go 12 or 15 passenger.
More importantly, the middle rows still don’t have headrests. Considering safety regulations don’t apply to these things, I would think what little, easy-ish whiplash protection is available would be extremely important.
You make me want to buy an Express just to make a tribute to an ExpreSS that never existed. Maybe a Duramax?
Express train! An Express towing an Express that has been converted into an RV/sleeper. If you want to get really ambitious, add a dining car in the middle – may I suggest a Taco Bell Express?