When did full size pickups become elongated minivans? Now it is common to drive down the street and see a five-year-old full-size pickup truck with no scratches, while the driver is talking via Bluetooth.
For many, pickup trucks in the 2010s have filled the niche that sedans occupied in the 1990s and 2000s. The very purpose of the full size pickup has been altered. This is apparent just by the number of pickups that have bed covers, many of which are hardtops with locks. Just go to a local hardware store and you will see trucks parked far away from the store entrance. They are not parked there because the truck's steering is poor making it too difficult to park up close, it is because they do not want the truck to get scratched.
The fact that trucks are now commonly rated to determine which one is the most luxurious is alarming in itself. The days of wearing work gloves while driving appear to be gone, as steering wheels are now heated. Driving with the windows down due to the outside heat is no longer necessary as just about every pickup on the road now has air conditioning.
Perhaps this luxury phenomena will ultimately drive the price of vintage full-size pickups even higher.
Interior Features Of The Full Size Pickup
The interior features of pickups are now just as plentiful as sedans. There are options such as heated seats and a heated steering wheel. The Honda Ridgeline Black Edition has a truck bed audio system, which is quite interesting but who exactly is going to be listening? How often do you see folks sitting in the bed of a truck, especially a Honda Ridgeline? Of course, pickup trucks now provide push button start and rear seats that recline. Let us not forget the stitched leather seats and the lighted cup holders. Apparently, these features are a must for today's full-size pickup drivers.
Truck Beds Continue To Get Shorter
As the interior of a truck becomes more important, the size of the truck bed has decreased for many models. Certain models now come with an in-bed lockable trunk. Why even have a truck if the bed is used like a car trunk? Yes, some pickup drivers need to lock their tools up, but is there enough demand to automatically take away truck bed space?
In part due to the quad cab options that are now so popular, the truck bed length has become much shorter. 20 years ago, many truck beds had a standard 8-foot bed. A bed this size was necessary to fit items such as sheets of plywood and drywall. Now the truck beds are as short as five and a half feet. Some SUVs had trunks with almost that length.
Where Will It End?
Will trucks, cars, and SUVs blend together into a new type of vehicle? If Tesla has anything to say about it, the answer is yes. Its new pickup truck, called Cybertruck, looks like an SUV, has the quickness of a car (0 to 60 in around 2.9 seconds), yet it indeed has a truck bed, albeit a small one. Ultimately, it is all about supply and demand. If people continue to yearn for fancy trucks, the truck-producing industries will continue to make them.