Anyone watching the truck commercials on TV these days will have to be forgiven for thinking pickups have, all of a sudden, become luxurious pieces of technology. While ads focus on Bluetooth connectivity, 4G LTE wi-fi, and 360-degree backup cameras, it's hard not to remember back to the days when spots by Ford, Dodge, and Chevy were more about being "Built Ford Tough" or "Like A Rock" than anything else.

The simple fact is that pickup trucks today are just as popular in cities as they are in rural environments and today's modern buyer wants to be able to hook up a trailer using only the touchscreen on a smartphone. But trucks used to do truck stuff! If only ads still showed trucks towing three boats up a 45-degree ramp through flaming hoops with Metallica playing to demonstrate the rugged dependability that should truly be the focus of any modern manufacturer.

In the olden times—before digital replaced analog and when locking hubs didn't mean a switch on the dashboard—every truck manufacturer did their absolute best to create a reputation for work-ready, durable products that were equally at home towing a tractor on a ranch or delivering a ten-foot tall stack of sheetrock to a job site. Pickup trucks should be designed to get work done, take the abuse of a day-to-day schedule, and get everyone home in one piece.

But not everyone uses their truck for truck stuff anymore and around every corner lies another ruined pickup truck with ridiculous mods, neglect, and a hilarious style—and they definitely can't get any work done.

20 Fake Rust

While the modern craze for car wraps that create the illusion that a brand new car is all rusted out and sporting a patina worth of a junkyard, there are plenty of older cars out there that have actually been neglected to the point of being ruined. Case in point is this old Toyota pickup, which reveals that the brand—like so many others—had serious rust problems to figure out well before their Tacomas of the 1990s grew famous for such concerns. Every pickup truck that has been ruined to the point where it can't work has suffered from the ways their owners want to modify them; disuse, neglect, and the toll of time can often be equally blamed.

19 Nice Rack

Good thing this Chevy has a roof rack, otherwise, everyone who saw it might make the mistake of thinking that it never gets used to do anything productive. This truck has been lowered so much that the wheels are slipping far beneath body panels; sure, it reveals that there was some serious engineering and fabrication going on during the build, but what's the point? Now, a slightly beat-up, eminently utilitarian pickup is a slightly beat-up, completely useless pickup truck. Put a single 2x4 on that roof rack and the result will be sparks, busted oil pans, and ruined driveways all the way home.

18 TRD: Totally Ruined Dynamics

Stance:Nation enjoys the reputation of being the cultural phenomenon that has probably ruined the most cars to date. Even the maniacs over at Hoonigan can't be blamed for thwarting the design and development of so many otherwise perfectly fine vehicles. This Toyota pickup might wear TRD badging on the front grille—TRD for Toyota Racing Development—but the stanced wheels, rolled fenders, and lowering kit mean that it's not about to go racing any time soon, nor will it be doing any real truck work in the near future. TRD may as well stand for Totally Ruined Dynamics.

17 You Are Getting Sleepy

Imagine these rims spinning slowly as this truck cruises down the main drag hoping to draw some onlooker attention. Like a hypnotist has been employing mindnumbing manipulations on everyone who looks at it, the truck seems to be going no more than two miles per hour. Oh wait, it's actually going two miles per hour because it's got such huge wheels and such low-pro tires on it that speeding up above a snail's pace would result in four flats the second it went over the tiniest piece of gravel or expansion crack in the road. And that's not quite what the term 'sleepy' means when applied to automobiles.

16 Dog Is My Copilot

This famous creation requires a couple of double takes to fully appreciate. And yes, it sure is a hilarious piece of custom building—but at what cost? Now, if this upside-down truck could flip over like a kid's RC toy, that would be awesome; instead, it just cruises along presumably causing traffic everywhere it goes. It takes a mad genius with some serious skills, a ton of patience, and a legit home garage to pull of a build this radical—but wouldn't someone with that kind of capabilities probably need to get some real work done with his truck every now and then?

15 Taco Shell

Toyota Tacoma owners love their trucks because they'll run forever with approximately zero maintenance costs over the course of a lifetime. Just don't mention rust; whatever you do, don't mention rust. Early Tacomas are renowned for their frame rust issues (for people in the Southwest, this applies a bit less) that have been known to result in a Toyota or two folding in half just like—pun fully intended—a taco. This poor Taco-ma would have had another few hundred thousand miles of service left, no doubt, had it been owned by a human who lived in a slightly drier clime (or who, at least, kept it in a garage).

14 Get Lifted

This truck is an actual piece of advertisement for a company that hopes some truck owners out there don't think this looks absurd (not to mention borderline dangerous). Lifted trucks have their purpose and who doesn't like a little chrome here and there? But this takes things to a whole new, cartoonishly radical level with about a two-foot increase in height and enough chrome to stop a lowrider convention in mid-jump. But don't make the mistake of thinking this truck will be getting any work done anytime soon—off-roading, hauling, and stump-pulling went right out the window the second this crime-on-wheels rolled out of the shop.

13 Factory Useless

The Chevy SSR is one of the most confusing automotive products ever to have been released by any automotive manufacturer in the entire history of the automobile. Even Doug DeMuro can't comprehend the concept and he's a guy who once tried to hypermile a Viper and its V10 engine in the hopes of achieving MPGs that were higher than single digits. With a hard-top convertible, a truck bed that left the factory lidded, and a couple of legit V8 engine options (even a six-speed manual was on offer), the SSR was doing everything it could do come with all the features that no other truck had ever actually utilized. But there was a reason for that, it turns out—truck stuff, namely, and the SSR's lack of an ability to do any of it.

12 Caddy Swap

Volkswagen's Golf-based pickups are cute, there's no denying it. They're even respectable as tiny city trucks that can haul a couple sheets of plywood or, on a big day, a few bags of cement. What they aren't known for, though, is having a huge surplus of horsepower or towing capacity. But VW has created a few awesome engines over the years, mostly in the form of the legendary VR6  (which featured in the Golf, GTI, and even the Audi TT). And the VR6 can produce a respectable amount of power (especially with an aftermarket turbo bolted on), so one guy decided to fix all his Caddy's limitations by swapping in a VR6 and mounting it amidships in the truck bed. Brilliant!

11 VelociRaptor

But it's got six-wheel-drive! And about a billion horsepower! And is better in every way than Ford's awesome F-150 SVT Raptor! The guys at Hennessey keep revealing that they're even more power-mad than anyone could have imagined and that their imaginations are more potent than everyone else's, anyways. The VelociRaptor blasts proudly along the knife's edge where insanity and genius get watery-eyed and start hugging. But with a price tag of over $350,000 and "600+ HP" twin-turbo upgrade, does anyone want to risk damaging either their truck or their trailer by doing a burnout while towing? (Ideally, the answer is yes but real-world applications of further awesomeness seem unlikely.)

10 The Record's Skipping

Custom woodwork and custom truckwork go hand-in-hand like a horse-and-carriage. How can any woodworker not own a pickup truck? But an equally important question is how this woodworker hopes to get anything done with their custom-woodworked pickup. With purposefully playful perspective reminiscent of a child's drawing (or maybe an adult's brain that's still coming down from the thrilling 60s), there's all of a sudden a surprising lack of a usable bed. Next, take a gander at the running boards, which leave little in the way of ground clearance. Even a gentle speed bump seems equally likely to splinter some parts of the bodywork or cause a trip to the mechanic—though the mechanic would probably take one look at this truck and just hand the owner a nailgun.

9 Big Head or Small Body

As a way of highlighting the absurdity of donks and monstrously lifted pickup trucks in today's automotive landscape, one wacky owner decided to toss some teensy-tiny wheels on his Dodge Ram. The result is a classic headache that requires a couple of glances to fully appreciate. No, it's not CGI; no, it's not lifted; yes, those are some wheels and tires that would be more at home on a Geo Metro. Though the point is well-taken, what looks like a few sheets of plywood in the bed puts enough strain on the tires that they look fit to burst at any second.

8 Toy Truck

With looks that blend a cartoon depiction of a truck after it's been smashed head-on by a train and a child's Tonka truck, this custom pickup doesn't seem likely to be performing any work any time soon. It's an impressive custom build that doesn't quite reveal the Volkswagen Beetle underpinnings that allow it to actually run (albeit quite slowly). Of course, a cartoonishly shiny paint job would be a great next step for this tiny truck—but whether that would make the owner paranoid enough that the truck would see even less work is a serious concern. Even more concerning, perhaps, than driving it at speeds above five miles per hour.

7 Cool Tub

Luke's pool seems like a pretty sorry solution to the hot, humid Southern weather that no doubt inspired this questionable project. This truck would be perfectly serviceable as a work truck but just try to imagine what happens when everyone gets sick of soaking in a pool that's the size of a truck bed and is lined with the awful texture of a blue tarp. Can someone just yank the tarp out like a fancy waiter pulling the table cloth out from under a full set of dishes? Truck beds are designed to handle the elements and can drain rain well enough but it just seems like Luke is inviting some rust issues on his relatively new pickup.

6 Caked

Ruining pickup trucks isn't always the hobby of misguided style "icons" and neglectful owners; sometimes, actual work is what ruins a truck. This dumptruck has suffered from a classic case of its driver not realizing exactly what he was doing. In fact, what was he doing? Was he trying to scoot back into the mud hoping that it would scoot up into his bed? Whatever the (highly questionable) goal may have been, this truck is going to require a ton of work cleaning out its drivetrain before it can safely be taken on the highway. Otherwise, there's little hope that it will survive any more hard work.

5 Golf Truck

There was a limited run of Volkswagen Golf Harlequins released in the late 1990s that have color schemes akin to this truck's strange exterior. Even in the 90s, though, no one actually thought the VW looked good; they were more of a gag than anything else. This truck leaves any truck guy gagging, though, because it's been ruined so far beyond what would be acceptable on any job site. That paint job would—albeit begrudgingly—be accepted by the crew but slamming a pickup like that and rendering it borderline useless goes a step beyond the comedic intentions of its paint scheme.

4 All Terrain

Nothing quite matches the sight of a pickup truck that's received thousands of dollars of mods to make it look tough—but it still has never had a speck of dirt reside on its shiny surfaces for more than eight seconds. Like a Jeep Wrangler Rubicon that's never seen anything but tarmac, this truck is a joke and the owner doesn't know it. Be careful not to take this thing off-roading! Those wheels and tires might get nicks before the dune-buggy out back even leaves the asphalt. Plus, some branches might ruin the stickers that are coating the entire lower edges of both doors.

3 Blistering In The Sun

This early Ford Ranger looks like it may have put in the time and effort that have earned it a chance to take a load off and relax. These small pickups helped to establish a market for anything less than the biggest and baddest (though there's nothing wrong with the biggest and the baddest!) and they're a common sight on roads around the country to this day. This one's been sitting in the same spot for a little too long, though, and it's unlikely anyone is biding their time while planning a refurbishment project. Sadly, for trucks like this one, a lifetime of duty renders them thrown away like yesterday's to-go containers.

2 Forlorn Hero

This truck will never get any work done ever again—unless it's putting in time as a model for photoshoots, anyway. An entire photographic world has opened up with the instant sharing platform known as the internet and hordes of enthusiasts are capturing pickups that have been laid to rest all over the world. Everyone loves the sight of an old truck rusting away into oblivion; even better, if they're work trucks with just enough history apparent to create the beginnings of a legend from which the viewer's imagination can travel through their own history with a lifetime of pickup trucks that have served them well.

1 Step 3...Profit

The process that led to this final product leaves a lot of questions just begging to be answered. The result is a cartoon of a truck complete with fake exhaust pipes exiting through the door, mirrors from a semi, a ridiculous pair of toolboxes in the bed, mismatched chrome wheels, and even worse—a front bumper "addition" more aggressive than Tom Selleck's mustache. At least the matte purple is matched by front grille is missing and the hood scoop is in full chrome, otherwise, no one would know what to do with this monstrosity other than ponder what—on Earth—was going through the head of its owner.

Sources: Truck Trend, Motor1