(first posted 5/25/2018) There is an old gambler’s adage about going big or going home. Since I’ve had pickups inexplicably on my mind, finding this Dodge Ram makes for an interesting delve into the purpose and utilization of such pickups and this adage leads to a journey I’d like to take you on.
Without further ado, let me invite you to Rural America.
Modern pickups often appear to provide a biblical experience for some internet commenters due to their wailing and gnashing of teeth when commenting. Why acknowledge profound improvements in capability, efficiency, and drivability when one can endlessly growl, fume, and fuss about their perceptions of them being bloated facsimiles of their ancestors, only hauling the owner’s ass, nobody needing anything like that, so forth and so on.
When reading such comments, I’m always tempted to ask a few questions: How many of these people own a five passenger Accord, Camry, Passat, Maxima, Fusion, etc, and never carry five passengers? Have passenger cars not grown taller and heavier? Do you know the situation of the pickup owner/driver? I confess; there is a time or two when I may have succumbed to the temptation.
Since I’m out to challenge perceptions by introducing different experiences and perspectives, I figured I may as well go for the gusto and ante up the biggest example of pickup I could easily find. This leads us to our featured Ram, found for sale recently in Missouri’s state capital.
For those elsewhere in the world, this red state (not a politically tinged statement; thank wiki for the map coloring) is Missouri, a place I often reference; I live square in the middle. Missouri is the 18th most populated state in the United States and Monsanto, Edward Jones, and Enterprise Car Rental are based here.
Covering an area of 69,704 square miles, Missouri is just over half the physical size of Germany. Among the 50 states, Missouri is mid-pack in area, being the 21st largest.
From Missouri Ruralist
A heavy component of the Missouri economy is agriculture. The rocky terrain that encompasses a respectable part of the state does not play well with row crops, so beef and dairy cattle, frequently owned by individuals, are considerable in Missouri’s overall agricultural output.
President Truman with mule team
As an aside, Missouri still has a respectable amount of horse and mule breeding, currently having the seventh highest horse population in the country according to the Humane Society. I mention mules as Missouri mules helped win World War I, with one farm alone in Missouri selling 180,000 mules to the British military. One source stated at the onset of WWI, Germany had six million mules to the combined four million of France and England; the United States had 25 million.
There are other agricultural examples that could be used, but for illustrative purposes, let’s stick with cattle.
So here’s your hypothetical situation, presenting but one scenario illustrating why this type of pickup is important, vital, and relevant: Many people in Rural America own acreage and raise cattle for extra income. The cattle grazing on your 5 to 500 acre (2.0 to 202 hectares) homestead have to be taken to market, generally to one of the many cattle auction houses that dot the state. Buyers for your cattle just don’t show up at your front door and the auction is part of the process of how beef cattle are shuffled to market. How are you going to transport them? As you possess finite resources, you need a tool that serves many purposes since single use tools are not generally a wise financial decision.
From the University of Montana’s Rural Institute
Let’s not think Missouri is alone in the need for enterprising individuals to transport various types of large loads, agricultural or otherwise; one can figure some variation of this to be similar in Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Colorado, Wyoming, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Texas, The Dakotas; the list will get long. It’s quite obvious the United States possesses a lot of rural territory.
Having cattle to sell (or buy) you need the right tool, a tool that will haul your cattle, carry feed, move implements, and perform whatever tasks around your property, all while being capable of toting passengers as needed since additional vehicles cost your tight budget even more to buy, license, operate, and insure plus all related and various taxes.
Think something like this Tacoma will work? It’s a fine little pickup, but keep in mind an adult Holstein will weigh 1,500 pounds (680 kg) and your trailer needs to be stout enough to hold a huge pissed off animal, so one should anticipate even a smaller sized cattle trailer to weigh 3,000 pounds (1,360 kg) or so. If you don’t like Holsteins, a Hereford will weigh 2,600 pounds (1,180 kg), about the same as a Charolais.
The tow rating for a four-cylinder Tacoma is 3,500 pounds so one could pull their empty trailer. Maybe.
Another factor to consider in pulling a cattle transport is how a fifth-wheel trailer (sometimes called a gooseneck) is much more stable than a bumper hitch trailer. Any number of RV related sites will confirm this, although there is sometimes a fuel mileage penalty.
Incidentally, not all cattle trailers are this long. Shorter ones in the 3,000 to 3,500 pound range are built and they work great with half-ton and three-quarter ton pickups (think Ram 1500 and Ram 2500, respectively).
You have multiple heads to transport, just like you do at most auctions. How many trips do you want to make? And how safely do you want to do it?
Allow me to introduce you to the Dodge Ram 3500.
This example is (most likely conservatively) rated by Chrysler to pull 22,750 pounds (10,319 kg). It has a Gross Vehicle Rating of 12,300 pounds (5,580 kg) which is roughly 50% higher than a 1982 Dodge Ram 350 crew cab, the next to final year for a crew cab of that generation. Pickups have come a long way.
It is heavily knocking on the door of a double cab Hino 155DC’s GVR of 14,500 pounds (6,575 kg). A toy the Ram is not. It’s also worth noting the Ram 3500 is middle of the pack for Chrysler as far as nominal load ratings; there is also a heavier duty Ram 4500 and 5500 but those are generally obtained as a chassis and cab, like said Hino.
In the interest of full disclosure, I picked the Hino brand as it was the first randomly chosen brand I found that had a truck with a comparable weight rating and cab configuration; no doubt it’s a fine truck and I’m by no means knocking it. Hino also has an internationally known name and this is an international audience, which works out well.
A pickup of the capability and magnitude of our featured Ram is a unique thing. For international reference, Ford’s UK website lists the rest of the world Ranger as having a 3,500 kg (7,700 lbs) tow rating; in other words, it’s twice that of the referenced Tacoma and roughly one-third of this Ram’s rating. If thinking in terms of farming, the Ram grows bigger corn and has bigger steak.
Let’s continue our comparison to the Hino. Here’s a peek into its interior.
Here’s the Ram’s interior. In addition to being more creature friendly inside, the Ram has a wider aptitude given its four-wheel drive.
The 210 horsepower and 440 ft-lbs of torque in the Hino is nice but it is simply outgunned by this Ram’s Cummins diesel. There is no mention of fifth-wheel capability for the 155DC on the Hino website, a trait that is a prerequisite in Rural America.
Even if stepping up to the larger Hino 238 series, the body chart references nothing but van and refrigeration bodies. This could likely be equipped with a fifth wheel, but Hino isn’t talking about it. Standard power is still modest at 230 horsepower.
The featured Ram’s 385 horsepower and 930 ft-lbs of torque is simply more conducive to moving that 22,000 pound trailer at prevailing highway speeds in hilly territory and it’s built to pull the type of trailer to most safely do so. Towing here is a different set of circumstances than it is in many other places.
Cost is another factor to consider.
Looking at commercialtrucktrader.com gives me a new 2019 Hino 155DC for $50,899. That price is for a cab and chassis only; one still needs to procure some type of bed.
Looking for a modest flatbed, Bert’s Truck in East Grand Forks, Minnesota, has a brand new Knapheide flatbed built for a dually truck. Presuming it will fit a Hino, the cost is $4,700 – and it’s a leftover bed manufactured in 2015. So this Hino will run a person roughly $56,000 – assuming it can be equipped to pull a fifth-wheel trailer. Perhaps it can, but Hino is tight-lipped about it.
Conversely, one can build a new 2018 Ram 3500 with 405 horsepower, in Big Horn trim and comparable to our featured pickup, for $57,675. It’s also possible to obtain a 14,000 pound GVW package on the 3500, bringing it within 500 pounds of the Hino’s GVW. That’s about the weight of a round bale of hay.
Judicious use of options can make one’s pickup much more reasonably priced. For example, I was able to spec out a regular cab 3500 with a gasoline engine and four-wheel drive for $38,500. Many of the one-tons I see are lower trimmed models; this Big Horn isn’t atypical but it isn’t typical, either.
What about sales and service for those of us in Rural America? There are 193 Hino dealers in the entire United States with the one nearest me being approximately 110 miles away.
There are 35 Ram dealers within a 100 mile radius of my zip code, nineteen of which are shown here.
There is simply no comparison about which is the better proposition for the outlined purposes. The Hino will be great in urban delivery uses while the Ram, whose dealers cover a larger area of the United States, will be superior in rural uses.
Our particular Ram is nothing special or unique. It’s a run of the mill one-ton pickup in basic white and is a Clydesdale among workhorses. It’s also a durable workhorse as it is advertised as having 281,000 miles (452,200 km) and, while it doesn’t come through in the pictures, it has obviously pulled a trailer for many of those miles being equipped with both a fifth-wheel hitch and a well used receiver hitch.
Might a person see this rig going down the road unloaded? Quite likely. Is that a reflection of how this pickup is always used? Hardly.
For us in Rural America, we are always subjected to how those “monster” pickups are compensating for shortcomings in manhood, they are only purchased because they are “needed” for towing, are a status thing, ad nauseam. Sure, there will always be a small but highly visible contingent of people who overshadow the rest, much like all the small economy cars with fart-can exhausts, spoilers the size of a barn door, and neon illuminated undercarriages. They exist.
However, when it comes to pickups, those of us in Rural America use pickups for the tools they are. Being the owner of a modest parcel of property, anything smaller than a half-ton pickup is utterly useless for my needs and similar applies to many other people. The proliferation of extended and crew cab pickups is a reflection of other elements, primarily the smaller size of current sedans and the ongoing need to carry people.
None of this has been intended as an advertisement nor to extol any virtues – signaled, implied, or stated. It’s simply to draw contrasts and to create some context on why pickups are popular and why pickups, even these one-ton units, are so necessary and how they are a superior tool. It’s also meant to challenge mindsets by providing insight into actual applications; hopefully I’ve found some success with that.
Despite the mileage, this Ram will likely still be earning its keep long after this article has faded into the mists of cyberspace.
Fascinating piece, Jason.
Farmers around the world are not a people generally known for their, um, how to say it, tendency to overspend. That alone gives the indication that such vehicles as this are bought for their utility. That is, if it there was a useful, smaller alternative for less outlay and less fuel use, it would doubtless be purchased. And driven till it was rust flakes on a frame and still then traded in with a curse that the darn thing didn’t last long enough.
At a quick glance, US rural population is 60 million. In many areas, that’s a lot of rusted or worn out trucks needing replacement every year. Explains a great deal to a foreigner about the otherwise baffling sales of the huge utes. But over all, they’re well outsold by other vehicles, in cities, on the coasts. It all makes sense. As you say, the relatively few that exist in suburban misuse skew perceptions of them for the rest. Rather like that shitty kid who always caused the whole class to get detention.
Something to ponder. Australia has a similar proportion of rural inhabitants, a bigger proportion of the economy in farming, and millions of tons of wandering meat on farms. Yet nobody drives these. They’ve never been available, other than as silly-priced toys. Perhaps there are many less smallholdings. Perhaps farmers pay to have cattle moved, and there’s an industry making that economic; perhaps they still have Hino-sized trucks, as once they often did: I don’t know. Someone from the bush here hopefully might comment.
Meantime, the LandCruiser is the country king. Some consumer habits are long-formed, and not necessarily from need. Toyota here has the sort of service network Chrysler or Ford or GM has in the US, as described in the post. If, say, Chrysler released a superior competitor tomorrow, it wouldn’t sell, just as if Toyota pushed a bigger-engined dual-cab Cruiser ute on rural US, it wouldn’t. Even if this theoretical machine was as effective as a big Ram, perception and history play their part as well as practicality, I suspect.
In researching this, I looked at the cattle industry in Australia, England, and continental Europe. The transport end of things was quite dicey as far as vehicles. However…
In Australia what I could find about cattle transport (and I’m including sheep in this) revealed a lot of road tractor based transport with multiple trailers. Now, whether such rigs were owned by the same person as the owner of the cattle was hard to determine. I also learned there are two specific zones for bovine cattle in Australia, one north and one south, with the markets for each being quite different. Owners tended to have more property in the north, which makes me wonder about corporate ownership.
In England, one needs training and licensing if transporting cattle over 40 miles. That would not fly here as many people will easily drive much more than that weekly to go to market. However, such things in the US would be regulated by the state quicker than they would be by the federal government.
Yes, many here who are more heavily ag based do keep their pickups forever. The majority of farm trucks are 3/4 ton or one-ton units. For comparison, that fictitious $38k Ram I specced has a price similar to a reasonably trimmed Toyota Avalon.
Jason, even if those English cattle are only going 20 miles, likely the farmer won’t be moving them. Depending on how well things are going, English farmers might have a Hilux or a Shogun or a Jag or an old Focus. The original Land Rover was aimed at farmers but modern tractors stole some of their thunder and many farmers went back to comfortable sedans. The question is – how many times a year are the cattle going to market?
Family friends of ours had a sheep farm when I was growing up. I recall them having a Peugeot 305 and a quad bike. And some collies.
Living in the states I find people tell me they need a pickup or a Suburban or whatever because you can’t get an 8×4 or a rhinoceros or whatever in a whatever, which is kind of the opposite of the farming example. In the UK the store will deliver the whatever for free or very cheap.
Hinos are for people who deliver stuff for a living, not people who might need to move a large object occasionally. They’re not going to mention a fifth wheel unless you’re looking at a tractor unit, and even then it would be a given.
Like I said, I used the Hino simply due to the close proximity in gross vehicle weight with this Ram. They have different functions but I needed something to provide as even a comparison as I could get.
Consideration of renting a truck is dicey to accomplish as everything locally (and I checked my town of 40,000 and the town of 105,000 a half-hour north) is either a box truck, a road tractor, or a 3/4 ton pickup. While this is admittedly a microscopic example, hopefully you can see why I say this.
Here’s the truck inventory for the only non-Penske or U-Haul type rental available: https://www.usrentsit.com/trucks_and_trailers
Trucking companies (at least in the different areas I have lived) won’t be overly interested in the relatively short hauls associated with moving cattle to market from the origin (or vice versa). There is too much other work competing for their time. I have enough occasion to deal with getting material shipped at work to know this well enough. Plus most of them are going to have live bottoms, flatbeds, tankers, and other trailers that don’t haul cattle. Seeing a road tractor hauling animals isn’t unusual but it isn’t typical either. One will see more of them near slaughter houses, such as in Kansas City for instance.
So in regard to truck rental, is it not there due to lack of demand or are these heavier duty pickups relatively prevalent due to lack of rental options? Perhaps it’s a chicken and egg type dilemma.
There are many other factors I haven’t delved into although they’ve been mentioned or alluded to in other comments. Prime factors are RVs, hunting, and a practice of DIY’ing but there are many others and I’m not up to writing another 2,000 word explanation!!! 🙂
Delivery from stores is a concept that is quite sporadic. Some lumber yards, for example, will deliver, sometimes free, sometimes not. There can also be a limitation on mileage. I can’t speak greatly about this as I simply take my pickup to the store for building materials and such and haul it myself.
In my mind, the differences in approaches and attitudes boil down to differences in culture, geography, and history. No doubt others may differ in level of agreement.
Hopefully this helps provide some insight although I have to qualify it all by saying I’m dog tired while typing this and your comments are terrific.
Yeah if all the pickups in the US dissolved, more options would spring up vis a vis rentals and haulage companies, and if UK companies stopped delivering lots of people would run out and buy a truck.
You need to realize that there are farmers and “farmers”. Meaning: farmers that farm full time; it’s their sole 100% occupation, need to be be generally pretty large sized in the US to support a US-style lifestyle. Farms have been growing in size ever since the 1880s, and are still getting bigger. Most US farms (that are owned by 100% farmers are now quite large indeed. And they tend to buy equipment that is truly suitable for the job at hand. And since they can of course write off all that equipment, they tend to buy nice big trucks for themselves, both for their utility as well as comfort and to make sure nobody thinks they’re not successful. The cost of a $65k pickup is peanuts on a big farm operation’s budget.
There are ever-fewer smaller “frugal” full-time farmers in the US, except for perhaps those organic farmers growing produce for the cities nearby. And maybe some hard-working Mennonite dairy farmers, who take over marginal farms because they’re willing to work the brutal hours. But they don’t splash out on $65k pickups; they have lots of kids to feed. They manage to get by with whatever older used trucks they can pick up on the cheap.
Then there are “farmers”; people who live on small-medium acreage but have a job, because making a living off a smaller/small farm is essentially impossible, and has been for some time. And in places like Missouri they have cattle on the land. Or in other places they might grow some cash corn or beans to augment their job income.
Folks like this place a lot of importance on their connection to the land and the farmer/rancher lifestyle. It’s a deeply rooted thing. There’s a reason rich folks pay ridiculous amounts for ranch land in places like Colorado, Montanan and Wyoming. And other Western states. Ralph Lauren owns a vast ranch in one of the most scenic valleys in Colorado. Ted Turner owns more ranch land than anyone in the world.
And there’s 100s of thousands of Americans that have moved to mini-ranchettes all over the country, especially in the West. And of course a large pickup is an necessary feature, along with certain other necessary accessories of the ranch/farm lifestyle.
And then of course there’s city folks who may have come from a more rural/small town to start with. America’s young adults have been flocking to cities for the jobs and opportunities also since the 1880s. The depopulation of rural areas continues, except for those affluent city-escapees who want to experience the ranch/ranchette lifestyle.
My point is that understanding the popularity (dominance, more correctly) of the large pickup is not going to be easy for a non-American, because there are so many aspects of lifestyle, politics, personal economics, etc., that are deeply involved. And the choices of “frugal farmers” has relatively very little to do with it.
I could go on, but….
Australia is a long way down under and famous for a rock, but we don’t live under it. Also, we have (underperforming) internet and are inveterate travellers. The world is the fishbowl to us, though I’d agree there’s certainly room to misinterpret what those big fishies are up to. (Whereas we’re just a minor amusing freak show to the big bowl, occasionally reported for crocodiles and sharks and huge jumping rats and freaky Fords that look like Chryslers, but I digress).
Farmers are frugal, even with big write-offable equipment on big farms. It’s a mentality. Call it an inherited sense of adversity. The very workforce is often from family or local and farm-aware. My point was actually the same as yours in that big operations need big equipment, this equipment. But they would buy smaller if it’d do, (though I add a caveat).
Everything you say about rural flight, hobby farming, well-off lux land for rich buyers, it all applies here on a population adjusted scale. In the US, the major difference is the sheer amount of good land available for hobby farming near big centres, meaning more need for do-all vehicles, even if the owner’s true income is as an accountant. That’s much more limited by climate and soil here.
Remember too that Australia has the world’s biggest ranches, the largest being 6 million acres. I should add it has a massive mining industry, where a cost-be-damned attitude IS more prevalent.
Yet in all this, no-one drives these monster utes; as I implied and you impliedly re-state, that’s historical (politics, lifestyle) for the US.
Last year, it seems the big utes sold about 2.3 million in the US, which is heaps, but that’s out of a market of 17.5 million vehicles – so, what’s that, about 7%?
And if, say, just 10% of that lot ended up wasting fuel and space for lifestylers in cities, that’s a lot of highly visible monsters to be irritated by, and for the rest-of-world to notice. I took Jason’s excellent piece to be a cool-headed explanation of these beasts to the rest of us, and to the critics at home too. My only point in answer is to ponder that Australia, with many, many similar considerations of use and lifestyle, does not seem to need them.
Not to be pedantic, but 2.3 million of 17.5 million total is just over 13%, not 7%, or slightly more than 1 of every 8 vehicles sold.
My only point in answer is to ponder that Australia, with many, many similar considerations of use and lifestyle, does not seem to need them.
Neither does America.
But what’s “need” got to do with most things on the consumer market?
These have their practical uses, as Jason points out. But if they were banned and all destroyed, life would go on. The small cattle growers in Missouri would hire a commercial cattle hauler to take their cows to the market. Jason would pull a trailer with his van or car to haul stuff. If he needed something bigger, he could rent a Hino from the truck rental yard. And so on.
Australia has proven two things: that both the American-style pickup and sedan are unnecessary. And even the Australian/American ute is gone. You’ve gone the way of Asia and Europe. Will America? Not with their pickups anytime soon, because they represent something very deeply held by many Americans.
And what is that? The connection to a simpler, more rural lifestyle. Which is vanishing, slowly but surely. So folks drive the pickups even in the city, often without any good justification, to remind them of what was. It reminds them of a simpler time. And because they can. It’s an American icon, practical or not.
And for other reasons…
Here in rural SE coastal VA, the ricer crowd has been replaced with the Carolina Rake diesel truck crowd, with semi truck wheels on pickups, huge through-the-bed fart pipes ‘rolling coal’, and a driver with bad facial hair, a chaw in his mouth and Florida Georgia line spewing full blast from the stereo. Its the modern version of the ’70s jacked up and cherry bombed Deep Purple Nova.
Working in the construction industry for three years now, these new Ram’s are as common as the concrete splatter on the trucks l drive. A basic Ram is (for today’s technology) just that- basic. The underside of the center console lid has math equations stenciled into the plastic for the man on the job site. While l would never own one, l understand why someone might want this tough, do it all truck. For farming and construction, they are the backbone of our day.
Today’s pickups are amazingly capable, and it’s not hard to see why rigs like this are so popular. Here in the BC Rockies, I’d say it’s about a 50/50 split between working rigs and toy haulers towing unbelievably large vacation trailers. And many of the toy haulers probably work for a living when they are at home. We do have a fairly large number of jacked up coal rollers as well, mostly driven by young guys with good paying jobs at the region’s coal mines, but is that really any different than the tricked out Trans Ams and Z-28s that were the vehicle to have when I was that age?
One thing I do wish was an option was an “economy” diesel option, say 275 or 300 horses and maybe 500 ft/lbs of torque for 3/4 ton models. The lower operating costs would appeal to my business sense and less wear and tear on driveline components appeals to my fleet manager.
Dodge/Ram trucks are a frustration for me, they are well set up as work vehicles with lots of nice little touches that come in handy but experience has taught me that lifetime TCO in a fleet are about 40% higher than equivalent Ford or GM. Every dime of the 1500 bucks or so you save when you buy one came out of quality. Not sure what the more recent models are like because I issued a “No Dodges” edict for my operation in 2014 due to this.
I no longer have a need for a large truck so I drive a Canyon these days but it did get tiresome listening to certain types questioning why people drive these big units. Interestingly, if you do drive one unloaded with 1 person they often get surprisingly good highway mileage!
While not as new as the one pictured, my partner has a 2005 version that we use primarily to haul an aluminum three-horse, gooseneck horse trailer with small living quarters. As was commented about the frugality of farmers, it was purchased used, in pristine condition with about 110,000 miles (175,000 km) on the odometer, and replaced a 1992 Chevrolet Silverado 3500 with a 454 cubic inch (7.4 liter) gasoline engine. The Chevy is still around as a backup, and still runs like a top with around 135,000 miles (215,000 km). One key difference from the Chevy is in fuel mileage: The Ram gets up to 20 mpg unladen, and drops to 13 or 14 pulling a 10,000 pound (4,500 kg) load. By contrast, the Chevy gets around 10 to 12 mpg regardless of how it’s loaded.
In addition to the Ram dealer network, I also agree that these are more popular than the Hino due to the familiar driving experience, especially when compared to a regular half-ton truck. When the Ram is pulling the horse trailer, horses and tack, you hardly notice it’s there…however, that can be a mixed blessing for the driver. ?
The undercurrent here is a growing dichotomy between those out in “flyover country” and those in the urban metropolis. On the one hand there are those who farm, ranch, or are aware of those activities on a daily basis. Then there are those in the big cities who never give a second thought to what they put on their tables and in their mouths. It just appears at the supermarket and they buy it.
One side gets their hands dirty; the other might put fingerprint smudges on their computer screens.
One side worries about how commodity prices will affect their very well-being; the other manipulates them with a flick of a finger.
One side saves and scrimps to acquire a vehicle that they need to earn a living and feed thousands in the other, who then lament those same vehicles, can’t understand why anybody would need one, levy taxes and fees and regulations that make them harder to afford, and then wonder why their food costs more at the store.
Off the soapbox!
I take it its been a while since you’ve visited a big city, G. Poon. There is currently a “farm to table” movement in restaurants all over the country. The emphasis is on procuring local ingredients and shunning processed food. This is the norm for most non-corporate eating establishments in the NYC metropolitan area. They’re quite aware of where their food comes from.
And those people who “put smudges on their computer screens” are the ones developing the gadgets you buy, the art you enjoy, the clothing you wear, and…the pick up trucks you drive!
99 percent of the people who live on the coasts are also affected by commodity prices and are not part of the finance industry.
There are plenty of people in New York and elsewhere that own pick up trucks. These are the ones we deride, because its abundantly clear they don’t need one. You and Jason are mistaking our contempt of pick up trucks driven locally for ones used in the Midwest. That is exactly the region I would expect people to use their trucks. Around here its just dudes who want something big. Those are the people we loathe.
And taxes, fees, and regulations have lead to safer roads and vehicles that pollute less and keep their drivers safe. Those things benefit everyone, from the hard working cattle rancher to the white collar workers of the big cities.
Geesh, I worked hard on a presentation that would help prevent any unharmonious conversation such as the dichotomy reference G Poon has. My intent was only to cast a light of information and offer a unique perspective. It seems I have not been successful in my efforts.
Please note I said “Rural America”; I never limited any of this to the Midwest because I really want to be inclusive and New York state has a lot of rural area. With New York state being one of the top five agricultural producers in the US, with 2/3 of New York’s agricultural output coming from livestock, it would seem reasonable there will be pickups of all sizes. Last I was in New York state there was a healthy representation of Rural America there. Even when my sister lived in Oswego, she said it reminded her of where we grew up.
So I suppose I’m a little perplexed and seeking some clarification about the need, contempt, and loathing statements given New York’s ample contribution to the overall agricultural output in the United States.
Jason, my comments were not directed at you. I thought your presentation was great!
You’re absolutely correct about New York having lots of rural area. The New York I’m talking about is the Hudson Valley, which has some small farms but is mostly suburbs. There you’ll find plenty of dudes who think they need a pick up truck when in reality they’d be fine with something else. When I sold Fords multiple guys came in and said they wanted a pick up truck because they want to intimidate other drivers. That’s what I was referring to.
Again, my reply was directed at G. Poon, not you.
It’s inevitable and predictable, from Mr. Poon.
Farm to table resturants are pretty popular here in the big metro area known as Seattle and of course one of the old time city attractions is the Farmer’s market where you can buy your produce directly from the people who grew it. While you won’t find Cattle for sale there are people who will toss a fish back and forth before they sell it to you, though they are not the people who caught it. The famous one in Seattle of course is not the only one in the metro area and I know several of those people who’s work involves sitting in front of a computer screen who wouldn’t consider buying in-season produce any other way, certainly not at their local super market.
@ G Poon:
I take great exception to your comment and implication.
Speaking from the perspective as a poor kid from the country, Air Force enlisted, Army officer, and apparently one of those people you seem to disdain because these days I twist more spreadsheets than wrenches, that’s more than a bit rude. I run a team of 70ish people in 10+ countries and do my level best to manage my guys/gals and your tax money as best as I can.
I have a Cadillac and a BMW because I like sports sedans and wouldn’t hesitate to get a big truck if I needed one. But I don’t.
But the implication that one type of work is inherently better or worse than another is highly offensive.
Come off it.
… And happy Memorial Day.
@ Shafer: nice post, highly enjoyable.
I get it that these kinds of trucks are needed, but when you drive something this long, you can’t Park it in diagonal parking spaces downtown. It doesn’t fit. It extends into the travel Lane behind you. It doesn’t fit. It’s too long. Too many owners just don’t get it.
My truck ownership has involved a Ford 150, but with an E prefix instead of an F.
Have my 3 minivans (Honda, Chrysler, Kia) done everything my E-150 Club Wagon did? Mostly. However, the much larger Ford was significantly more roomy and comfortable for travel and had significantly greater ability to carry cargo. I have stacked 50 bags of mulch in my Kia minivan. But I could tell as I drove that it was really weighed down. 50 bags in my Clubber would have been no big deal.
I have also found that trucks tend to be a little simpler and easier to work on than a passenger car from a given era, partly due to their large size providing more room and easier access for repairs, and also due to some heavier-duty parts. The percentage of old pickups on Craigslist seems to increase as the age of vehicles you are looking at goes up. Keeping a truck for a long time seems to be a more sensible proposition than keeping a car, in some instances.
I’m often in rural Missouri, since my wife’s family lives in a county with five times as many cattle as people. Where they live, it seems that there are two types of vehicles on the road: giant pickups and Chevy Luminas. Really, northern Missouri is the Lumina Capital of the World. But on the pickup end of things, they’re all Big, and the color of choice is red. My in-laws’ silver 1997 F-150 looks downright puny when we drive it into town.
One point of curiosity though: You mention that pickups have come a long way, and that an ’82 350 Crew Cab had a GVWR 50% that of a modern equivalent. So my question is this: What did ranchers drive in 1982? I’m really curious about this. Did ranchers own more heavy-duty commercial trucks, did they use smaller trailers & multiple trips, did they contract with cattle transport firms, or did they just overtax the pickups that were then available?
I’m reaching into the depths of my memory on this while working with the disadvantage of having moved to many times to have a long-term picture on some specific examples.
Once upon a time, I remember seeing a lot of medium duty trucks, say Chevrolet C-60s. Recently I have heard a few people talk about having attended auctions and these cannot be given away. They were great for grain hauling but with the preponderance of used road tractors, grain farmers are transitioning to used ones. So I’d say the lower end of need has been met by pickups rising to the occasion.
For cattle, I’m a little less certain what has been done as I am a transplant to cattle territory. Maybe people had fifth-wheels for their C-60 type units? Or they made more trips? Or overloaded their one-tons? I’m guessing they overloaded them. Overloading pickups has been a long-held tradition in my family.
It surprised me that an ’82 D-350 had like an 8,500 lb GVW when one can obtain 14,000 on a similar pickup today. But when people work out and get stronger, they become physically larger.
My BIL’ s farm transitioned in the 90s to bigger tandem axle trucks and later to a semi for hauling grain. These old farm trucks are fairly common around here and as you say, they have very little value. They are quite unpleasant to drive for fun and way too big for that. The kind of work they were built to do has been taken over by trucks either bigger or trucks that are better suited for more things.
That’s an interesting angle about the popularity of big pickups – that a lot of what we’re seeing is the bifurcation of the heavy truck market.
It seems that the formerly ubiquitous heavy duty trucks of the C-60 variety are being replaced on one end by more specialized heavy-duty vehicles and equipment, and on the other end by bigger pickups… these pickups can take over many of the C-60s hauling needs but can serve other functions (like daily transportation) as well. I suspect that other industries besides agriculture (construction, for instance) have seen a similar phenomenon.
Yes, because farms (meaning full-time, not hobby farms) continue to get bigger and bigger, and are on average much larger than they were a few decades ago, never mind in the 60s or 70s. So yes, equipment choices for full-time farming operations will be pragmatic, as the equipment is expensive and needs to do its job efficiently.
When it comes to the choice of vehicle the owner of a successful full-time farming operation, it’s undoubtedly going to be a large and often nicely-trimmed pickup, since it’s going to be written off as an expense. And when you’re farming several thousand acres (typical/common now) why not drive the biggest and nicest truck? It can tow whatever needs to be towed and it is comfortable too, and it sends the right message: I’m a successful farmer/rancher.
Of course when it gets to really big operations, the owner might well not be driving a pickup at all. Which sends another message: I don’t need to anymore.
You are absolutely correct – old farm trucks were often medium-duty trucks. In my line of work, which deals with farm trucks, the pre-1985 trucks still in service are usually medium duty rigs. They often have very low mileage and with long service lives, as they are mechanically very simple and in some cases stay on rural roads and farmyards that aren’t salted in the wintertime. Newer than 1985, it’s generally split between tri-axle Class 8 grain trucks made out of old semi tractors, semi tractors to haul all manner of trailers, and HD pickups.
My uncle Theodore raised sheep outside of Pittsburgh. He’d retired by the time I was growing up in the late 60s / early 70s, but his medium-duty, 2 axle stake truck he used to haul them was still around. Hie was a also a dog breeder, and his daily driver was a ’73 Dodge Club Cab, in that orange and white scheme they all seemed to come in. His car was a ’54 Windsor.
(Even though our family ran a C-P dealership, everyone tended to keep their cars for a long time, which was remarkable given the amount of road salt thrown around each winter.)
That seemed to be a fairly common truck combo on the smaller farms in my area – and you still see it in the rural parts of central NJ, where my folks live today. Unless you’re in Amish country, where horsepower is literally that – I once spent a fragrant afternoon slowly following a horse-drawn manure wagon on one of Pennsylvania’s many narrow, high-crowned, and twisty “Pinchot” roads, named for the governor who paved them in the early 30s.
Hmm, the edit button seems to have vanished… That should have been his red, heavy-duty, late 40’s B-Series Dodge stake truck. And the Windsor was blue. For some reason, my family had a thing about blue Chryslers and Plymouths.
Coming into this late, per usual-busy week. Dad farmed 320 acres in rural Western Iowa from 1949-1984. During that time he worked his livestock holdings up to about 400 head of hogs (Dad’s own line of lean crossbreeds -Yorkshire, Hampshire and Duroc, mostly-about 225-250 pounds at sale) and 400 head of cattle (Hereford, Angus and mixed breed heifers, purchased as yearlings and about 1000 to 1100 pounds at sale) per year. We got by with a 1/2 ton Chevy pickup most of that time. If we had to move hogs or cattle around on the farm, we herded them over the ground, with the help of Mac the border collie (well, he tried with the hogs, they were usually too excited to notice him. The cattle gave him more respect. He knew where to nip on their haunches, and they knew that, too). We had big sideboards we could put on the pickups if we had to move a few cattle or hogs to market, or 4-H calves to the Fair. Later we had a 12-1/2 ton International grain truck that served the same purpose or, with tarp, gave our 4-H club a place to stay while at the Fair. We had a loading chute that made this possible (the livestock, not the 4-H’ers). Anything more than that, we called the livestock trucking company in our home town (“Call Denny Pudenz”) to come and get them. After I left for college Dad and my brother built a small metal trailer to haul shoats (pigs one size up from babies) from the nursing sheds to the finishing barn. Everyone approved of this, as chasing shoats even a short distance was a wild and crazy time. All hands on deck.
We drove or towed farm equipment from farm to farm, up to a distance of about 10-15 miles by tractor; towed equipment on good wheels could travel further behind the pickup. If something had to go to the dealer, they had a trailer with a tilting hydraulic bed and winch for loading. And we got by. I don’t recall seeing more than 3/4 ton pickups as a young man, and a fifth wheel trailer was a novelty we would all stop to stare at and try to imagine the physics of how that worked.
My brother now has a Tahoe and a tandem axle lowboy trailer with electric winch to haul his antique tractors and machinery around, as well as the occasional load of hay. That’s fine, he needs it for the distances he travels. If he didn’t need that, he would rather drive a Maxima, or maybe a small BMW or Audi. Both of us marvel at the size of trucks people drive in town and wonder where the market will go next.
Maybe people had fifth-wheels for their C-60 type units? Or they made more trips? Or overloaded their one-tons? I’m guessing they overloaded them. Overloading pickups has been a long-held tradition in my family.
It was a combination of all of the above. The Big 3 all had 1-ton DRW trucks in the ’80s, but the GVWR was 10,000 lbs., and the tow ratings were around 10-15K. And that was considered “good enough.” When they were fully loaded, 55 MPH was your top speed, with leisurely acceleration. So it was either accept that your job will take x amount of time with a light-duty 1-ton, or go up to a medium-duty straight truck.
I think that the old heavy duty trucks like the Ford F600 or this Studebaker and the like used to do some of the real heavy work. Back then (at least in my experience) even smaller farmers always had a “farm truck” for such jobs. These didn’t rack up many miles and therefore tended to stay in service for a long time.
Into the late 80s my BIL’s family farm was using still using GMC and Chevy grain trucks from the early 1960s.
Medium duty trucks were the work horses back then as you say, but they did it much slower. They were geared for local hauling, not Interstate travel. The F 750 that I used to haul corn silage in was only good for 45mph loaded, or as was the case, overloaded.
Trucks have come a long way. In the 80’s the trucks were over worked and over loaded. Still they got the job done and many still do. What has changed most is the fact that most use the truck as daily transport, Rather than taking the caprice or crown vic to town for lunch or shopping, most just take the dually because it is now as comfortable to drive as the sedan was 30 years ago and gets better fuel milage.
A very well thought out piece, and thank you for sharing that side of the discussion.
As someone who has encountered both rural and suburban life, along with a bit of city life, it comes down to whether one has picked the right tool for the job at hand. I don’t think that anyone begrudges anyone chosing a pickup truck when it fits, but…
would you not look askew anyone who is towing a trailer behind a Smart? Or has a Corvette out on a rutted, dusty dirt road? I have heard those comments coming from friends who live a rural lifestyle. Yes, most of the issues come down to those who make a vehicle choice based on an imagined lifestyle projection rather than their actual lifestyle. It cuts both ways. Does Soccer Mom need room for 5 kids and team equipment? Heck yes! Does that mean that she needs a trail rated 4X4 4 door crew cab when she lives in a deed restricted community built 4 years ago just off the main road to town? Probably not. Same with the Bro-Dozers that carry suburbanites on their daily commute. It’s your choice and your right to make that choice. Its also the right of others to question your choices. They don’t make the decisions for you, so the onus is on you. It all comes down to you being comfortable with your choice. If someone challenging your choice makes you nervous, or you find it hard to defend your choice, then don’t get mad. And I say this from experience. Live a lifestyle that is not the social norm and you fully understand living with the consequences. If that choice is worth it to you, it works.
Great article Jason. I have read your comments over the years on pickups and the rural lifestyle, and I share much of the same sentiments as you do. While I think (and hope) most people wouldn’t have much issue with a cattle rancher driving a one ton dually, I think people get peeved when they see someone who is perceived to have no use for such a large vehicle.
While sometimes these trucks are simply driven because they are large, at other times perception and reality are not the same. For instance, I have a colleague who’s daily driver is a F-450 Crew Cab Dually diesel. People who don’t know his lifestyle might get down right angry seeing him commute alone in such a monster of a truck. What the casual onlooker doesn’t know is that he is very involved in motorcycle racing and travels all over the continent hauling a large travel trailer with a toy box that houses all his racing bikes, tools and is his mobile home on wheels. He did previously own a smaller truck with a lighter trailer, but neither was up to the task which is why he upgraded.
That said, I do think that the current crop of HD trucks are way overkill for their typical use. The power from the modern diesels is beyond have that extra “oomph” to get up a long grade. I think it’s hard to deny there is some one-upmanship going on here. Having driven many lower powered medium duty vehicles, they do in fact work very well despite their seemingly low power ratings. You just get used to running them at max power a lot and slowing down in the hills.
One of my best friends growing up came from a family of farmers. They hauled livestock and bails back then with the old considerably lower power big block trucks and even some early diesels (they had a some GM 6.2’s). While slower than the stuff today, the job did get done, albeit often with an overloaded truck.
FWIW, Dodge had the lowest GVWR in the early 80’s but it also lacked a big block engine. GM trucks had 11,000 lb GVWR, and Ford had a 10,000 GVWR. Of course this still far lower than the numbers today, but these trucks were also much lighter so their payloads were still considerable. It also might be worth mentioning that while the 4-clyinder Tacoma has a 3500 lb tow rating, the V6 models are rated at 6500 lbs (which makes up the vast majority of sales). While the UK Ford Ranger also has a 3500-7700 lb tow rating depending on the configuration. So those two truck are actually pretty comparable.
Thanks for your perspective, and the details of load/towing capacity. For the most part, they really haven’t changed all that much. And bringing in a four cylinder Tacoma into the conversation/comparison is pretty irrelevant.
And yes, there’s a hp/torque war that’s been going on in these diesel trucks for some time. The first Dodge Cummins with 170hp was considered a revelation for towing, and one saw them zipping up and down I5 with huge trailers. Let’s face it; nobody would spec 400 hp in a commercial truck this size, in terms of what is appropriate for the loads involved. But as I said, it’s a hp/torque war, so why not. How long will it be before they hit 500hp?
We are on the same page in many regards.
Your coworker with the F-450 sounds familiar; in fact the Dodge with the tractor belongs to a coworker of mine. It’s the same type of scenario – his half ton went away for this 3/4 ton. The day I took the picture was the first time I’d seen a trailer on it.
That’s why I went down the path of saying they aren’t always loaded but likely are more often than most people might suspect.
Truth be told, if I had to own a pickup from the ones I’ve shown here it would most likely be the UK Ranger. For my purposes it would be in a really sweet spot according to what I’ve read about it.
Jason, good job of tackling a big subject.
Trying to explain why big pickups outsell any other light vehicles in the US is no easy task. Especially so to folks who live outside the US. It’s a unique American phenomena, and one that springs from a whole raft of reasons. You have touched on some; there’s many more.
I tried to add a bit of additional insight about farmers and such in a comment near the top. But that doesn’t begin to fully explain all the reasons. There plenty more.
I did find some of your comparisons a bit curious, especially the Hino. These cab-over trucks like it and the Isuzu and such are of course from Japan, where road space is at a premium. (in Europe too, of course). These CO trucks are typically used in us cities for operations where that is an issue too, for instance, landscapers, who need to get into the yards and alleys of their clients.
I know a guy here in town who rebuilds foundations and has a a couple of these crew-cab Hinos because he needs to get into small lots and such too. They’re obviously more space-efficient. And they are tough as nails. But these are commercial vehicles, and no self-respecting Mid-American rancher/farmer (most likely part-time, of course) is going to even remotely consider a Hino crew cab CO truck as an alternative to his beloved F-350 or Ram Big Horn.
The same applies to a four-cylinder Tacoma. About the only ones I see like that are used by a local car parts chain to deliver parts. Nobody buys one like that anymore, not even in Eugene!
Thank you. This was a toughie once I dived down into it further and I’ve been tweaking it for two weeks.
At one point I had used the International TerraStar for comparison instead of the Hino but the lowest GVW of the TS was still around 20,000 lbs. Yes, I agree, the Hino has a entirely different DNA and comparing the two is somewhat like comparing a sledgehammer to a pick-ax. Ultimately I used the Hino as I figured more people would have familiarity with it than with a TerraStar plus the GVWs were a lot closer, allowing some degree of even footing.
Like with the Hino, I used the base Tacoma only after swapping it from a V6 powered one. It provided better contrast.
It all boils down to need and purpose. If I was the foundation rebuilder you reference, that Hino would be just the ticket. If I’m out hauling cattle (horses, sheep, building materials, boats, etc.) over long distances at higher speeds, my choice would be different.
In the big scheme, it all boils down to how one needs to skin the cat (which is what I also said on your VW post). I’m not sure I agree with your tribalism take on it, but the fun thing about being here is the constant exposure to alternative experiences, needs, and executions. So that was a driving force of the inspiration when I found this Ram for sale.
Tribalism is just part of it; certainly not the whole thing. But when one lives on a West Coast urban area, the tribalism is a pretty significant factor in a lot of things including the choice of vehicles. Maybe you’re not aware of it so much because it’s more homogeneous where you live. Here there’s a very stark contrast between certain factions. And I’ve watched those contrasts become starker over the decades.
But yes, that certainly doesn’t begin to fully account for the popularity of the big pickup. It’s a very versatile tool. And there’s plenty of cross-over too. Simple stereotypes never suffice; in fact they are invariably self-limiting.
While some people use 5th wheel and gooseneck interchangeably, they have distinct differences. Both do put the tongue weight of the trailer above the rear axle but that is where the similarity ends. A fifth wheel hitch is what is used with semi trailers, a plate that carries the tongue weight and a pin on the trailer that latches into the plate to do the pulling. A gooseneck hitch uses a ball and socket for both purposes just like your typical standard bumper hitch. The trailer just has the gooseneck to get up and over the tailgate on its way to the ball in the bed.
Jason,
That was an excellent article that did a great job of explaining something that seems to be a hot topic at times here on Curbside Classic. I will present another perspective on the why: Although not a farmer, I am one of “those” using as my daily driver an F350 Diesel crew cab 4X4, long box. For me it is not efficient necessarily, with a 50 mile round trip commute. However, it’s a lifestyle choice at the cost of efficiency.
I don’t have a lot of spare time, but when I do I want to get where I’m going, in one trip with no hassle, safely. With the one ton I can have two snowmobiles on the sled deck on top of the box, gear in the box under the deck, and tow a trailer with two more snowmobiles AND still take my wife and 3 kids. And drag the whole mess up a barely maintained logging road in 4 wheel drive, and get back at the end of the day.
In the summer, I put my ATV and two dirt bikes on the deck (and maybe some bikes too), kayak/paddle boards on the roof rack, camping gear under the deck and a 29′ trailer behind me and 5 people in the cab – and I can do it safely, and legally even at 19,500 lbs all up weight. In the interior of BC with 17% grades, gravel logging roads of questionable conditions the big truck makes a big difference.
And yes, it does work sometimes: hauls skid steers around, various truck projects, large loads for work at times, dump trailers, and whatever else comes up.
As TiredOldMechanic said, certainly you see a lot of “coal rollers” usually from northern Alberta oil field workers, with jacked up trucks, 6 inch straight pipes and nothing ever in the bed of the truck, but around here most trucks are used just as they are in Missouri and the rest of North America – as a work truck, as a daily driver, as the recreational hauler, and the new version of the family wagon in many cases doing all of those tasks in one package.
Well done post, thank you and great comments as well.
So, I’m just a data point of one, but here you go. I live in Central Illinois in a farming community (corn/soybeans, mostly), have a well-paying “day job,” so I fall into the hobby farm category. We’re on 15.5 acres, with about 11 in alfalfa hay and 2 in fenced pasture. I run a few head of cattle for meat, bale my own hay (small squares) and sell what surplus my animals don’t need.
When we moved here. I bought my Dad’s ’69 F-100 and drove that about ten years before it developed enough issues that I finally sold it off.
An ’85 F-150 4WD succeeded the ’69, but it was a hot mess and it got replaced with a ’99 F-250 Powerstroke after a couple years. The diesel was all grunt, but was old enough to have a lot of its own issues, so I sold it off after a few years and bought my first (and probably last) new truck, a ’15 RAM 2500 Tradesman (base trim). I got it with the “small” 5.7 gas engine, which has more than enough grunt to do what I need, without the expensive maintenance and winter issues the diesel had.
I bought the truck “used” but with a new warranty – it had about 700 miles on it from being used by the dealer (in Chicago) to plow all their lots. I paid about 30% under sticker, so a touch over $30K. I then put a few $K into wheels and tires and a few other accessories to set it up the way I wanted it (including a gooseneck hitch).
It looks nice, and was a blessing when I had to make multiple trips to my Dad’s home in Georgia as his dementia finally brought things to the point where we had to move him to a care facility and sell off his house and 99% of his possessions. I also will drive it to work occasionally, but as a ¾-ton truck, it rides pretty roughly on our rural roads, so it’s definitely not my daily!
So for me, it’s definitely a tool, but one that I wanted to be nice enough to use on long trips, etc.
Most farmers around here have to run 1,500–2,000 acres (usually scattered across numerous smaller fields) to be profitable, and many (but not all) are in extended cab ¾-ton or 1-ton mid-trim pickups that are either a few years old, or are 10+ years old beaters. A farming friend also uses a beater Windstar to haul tools and supplies around to all his different fields.
Hauling beef.
As purchased.
Ah, the old wagon with the sideboard! I scooped a lot of shelled corn to the cattle out of one of those. We need to get you a good, used Heider box on a Westendorf running gear. Then you will be set; keep this one for parades and giving rides to the grand kids.
If a boutique “truck” owner tries, on a regular basis, to haul anywhere near the maximum tow rating, it will result in very expensive repairs. These “trucks” are not commercial vehicles. They are not designed to work at maximum load all the time. They are designed to move their owners around.
A Hino truck (and I know them well, managing a fleet of them) comes with a 1,000,000 km power train warranty. A Hino 368 will carry, not pull, triple its own weight in payload.
Horsepower doesn’t matter much in a real truck. It’s the torque the diesel has to pull the heavy load that matters.
Used a ’96 Dodge Ram 1500, small V-8, to tow a race car and trailer (about 5,500 lb and somewhat over the truck’s rating, plus a load in the bed and two to four people, so often way over the truck’s rating), including lots of up and down hills at speed. Still going strong at almost 200,000 miles. That truck was at full throttle, under load, pretty much all the time, every weekend, for years and years. Went through a lot of brakes and catalytic converters (here in California you keep those things on), and blew up one rear axle. That’s it. Moved pretty slow and lumbering, too. Two secrets to making your “boutique” truck last. One is buy it new and maintain it properly. Two is treat it as right as you can, and be gentle on the inputs, as much as possible. The third thing is, leave a big gap in front of you. Despite trailer brakes, you need a lot of stopping room.
While the 150/1500’s may not be commercial vehicles the 350/3500’s certainly are and do stand up for many 100,000’s of miles in hard daily use.
The highway I live by is heavily traveled by many small time/hot shot haulers. The big dealer’s auto auction is about a dozen miles east and that is also where there is a large concentration of RV dealers. So you see them with 3 car ramp trailers hauling cars to and from the auction and others hauling the huge triple axle travel trailers to the dealers. Many of them are using old trucks that they have obviously kept around.
The pictured Hino is a class 4 truck so no better weight carrying capability than a 450/4500 and it can’t touch the Ford and Dodge’s towing capability.
Pish posh. It’s not even a Mega-Cab.
As a recent transplant from the urban east coast to Oklahoma, I’ve started to discern the difference between show trucks and work trucks:
Dualies are almost always work trucks. They may be big, expensive, chrome-y, etc… but they work for a living.
“Regular” trucks, like crew-cab F150s are often just family/commuter vehicles, but some do work for a living. I know that irritates some people, but these modern trucks are a pleasure to drive: smooth, quiet, great view, and above all… spacious. It’s like having a Tahoe or Expedition, but a bit cheaper… in some ways more practical, and in some ways less. These are like driving a Chevy Impala in the 1970s: sure, you could drive something smaller, but some people like having the space.
Show trucks: Lifted suspensions, big wheels, low-profile tires, loud exhaust, etc… These are only a small fraction of the fleet here…. I would guess well below 10%. Flashy and impractical. Not my taste… but who am I to judge? My daily drivers rotate among a 1967 Imperial, a 1991 Cadillac Brougham, and a 1998 Mercedes S320. Those are very “CC friendly” vehicles, yet anyone could call those flashy and impractical, and they would be right.
Many newer “regular” trucks of the F-150 ilk have wide, low profile types similar in proportion to those on newer sedans. They change the driving characteristics quite a lot. The driver “feel” is more precise, and the braking distance much better, but the road noise and jounciness over the older concrete highway seams is much greater.
The old school, narrower, high sidewall “balloon” tires give a much smoother and more comfortable ride over less than perfect pavement at speed, but the braking distance and handling at speed do suffer.
Also relevant is that there is greater use of trailers these days then in the past. Rather than have an older dump truck on hand (with attendant registration and insurance costs) a lot of farmers and landscape contractors instead use a heavy duty pick-up and a dump trailer. Overall costs are much cheaper. A lot of other hauling that used to be done by a medium duty commercial truck is now done with a heavy duty pick-up and a trailer.
You can use multiple trailers for multiple jobs. The registrations are cheap and renewals are often good for a few years at a time, and the insurance for the tow vehicle carries over to any trailer attached to it, for liability. When you need a new truck, all of your various work applications are intact with the existing trailer equipment.
My F-150 is more truck than I really need. I bought it to tow a trailer but those plans fell though. I still use it as a truck though, hauling anything and everything including 3 kids and a wife. It’s a great family vehicle, full size pickups are the last vehicles out there that can comfortably seat 5 in two rows of seating. I’ll buy another to replace it because I like having it. A smaller less capable truck would suffice for 95% of what I do, but they are nearly as expensive, considerably more cramped, don’t offer much if any better economy, and the exterior dimensions are still quite large.
An example of the versatility, I recently bought a tailgate pad to haul bikes with. Hands down the easiest way to haul 5-6 bikes around, wish I would have discovered it years ago.
Having ridden in the back seat of a twin cab Ranger I agree on the size issue I dont actually fit them, nice enough uo front but only kid sized in back same goes for thev Toyota, Isuzu, Nissan equivalents, thats something US sized pickups have to their advantage.
The double cab on mid-size pickups, global or American, is only about as long as the extended cab on a full-size. There was a time when the extended cab was the largest cab available on any full-size pickup unless you wanted to jump up to a rough-riding long bed 1-ton, but that was nearly 20 years ago.
Interesting comparisms on how farming folk move animals about, got a mob of sheep, cows, pigs, emus (yes in NZ) to move to a sale you call a transport company, someoe turns up in a properly equipped stock truck complete with all the legal requirements, properly built stock crate with on board effluent holding tanks MAF certified etc and takes your consignment away, yes smaller rigs like the Hino sized rig exist for smaller loads but most stock trucks are 8 or 9 axle truck and trailer units, the DAF milk tankers I was driving have all been reconfigured as stock units now the tanks are twist locked on and when that company repurposes them for their core business stock crates are twist(container) locked onto the chassis,
Being able to stop a truck fully laden with a trailer behind is far more important than its ability to move the load and to do that here the braking system on both units must be rated for the task before its allowed on the roads.
Bryce, I’m glad you explained how animal transport happens in NZ. I found pictures of it and could only speculate on it being for hire transport as I could find nothing that elaborated on it. Sounds like we’ve identified another variation among countries, something that is endlessly fascinating!
Indeed! I was hoping to hear from Bryce or perhaps old Pete on this. Is what you describe pretty much the norm in Southern Aus too, do you reckon Bryce?
I don’t think so justy. NZ would seem to be similar to the UK where distances to be traveled are smaller therefore farmers would not use a truck as much. Fundamentally there will be a threshold of usage vs cost that dictates whether you own the truck or hire one (contractor).
Farms in Australia would vary quite a bit (to say the least). A dairy farm would not be transporting stock or other heavy freight that much so might use a contractor. If you raise beef cattle or other stock you will be moving them more regularly. Sale yards, or “livestock exchanges” as they are now termed have been relocated and replaced in the last 20 years so they now have room for much bigger trucks of specialist contractors, and more of them than the typical medium rigid body trucks that were the most common for farmers.
Vegetable or similar farms still have medium rigid body trucks because they are taking produce to markets very frequently and the markets are still congested. I think most of these are family-operated. Cereal crops and the like used to be the same medium trucks everyone has been talking about, but now more often semi-trailers because the size of farms has increased and labour costs more – you want fewer trips to the silo.
My grandfather’s ‘fleet’ used to be a motorbike, small ute (4wd when they became available in the late-70s onwards) and a 7-ton truck, for sheep, beef cattle and cropping. My other relatives on a much bigger operation have 4-wheel motorbikes, mid-size 4×4 or Landcruiser/Patrol pickups, and trucks in a variety of sizes. One used an Isuzu 2-ton NKR200 type (say 10,000lb GVM) instead of a pickup but otherwise they were 20 tonne GVM up to 90 tonne GVM.
Some larger farms will have their own truck but thats becoming increasingly rare and those trucks would often be a used full size six or eight wheel tipping flat deck to which a stock crate could be attached, but would allow the base unit to perform a variety of tasks.
So…Did you buy it? 🙂
I’m a bit late to the party but great piece, thanks for delving into the subject. Around here on I-25 we constantly see large pickups (2500/3500 etc) used by the oil field companies – often with TX registrations they are usually hammer down in the left lane with a large trailer in tow carrying some sort of huge valve assembly or pipes or what-have-you to get from some depot to a field in a hurry and/or back again. Then we see the used ones for sale where a two to three year old one will have well over 100k miles on it and a 5-6year old one has several hundred thousand on it. They tend to be dirt-splattered or completely covered due to the lack of roads where they are headed to or from, often with two-man driver teams to comply with the regulations regarding driving time restrictions.
However those are very rarely dual rear axle trucks, those tend to be the ones with WY, SD, or ND plates around here as well as some CO ones, usually with a trailer in tow for horses or some other sort of livestock as you described here.
Both kinds can be found at Costco where the owners literally are transferring multiple grocery carts of goods into all the bed and passenger areas for the trip back to where they came from, presumably several hundred miles from the store where distance is measured in hours distance rather than miles, this being the monthly provisions trip or whatever.
A real working truck almost always has more than the minimum bed length offered and frequently the maximum.
This subject is so deep and broad one could explore the different nooks and crannies around for a while. But I’m not going to do so again for at least a week or so! 🙂
No, I didn’t buy it nor even write down the number; in fact, it’s gone from where I found it so it’s likely sold and preparing for new adventures.
Right now I’m too focused on other things such as brush clearing and getting the Galaxie road ready for this summer.
A lot of people just don’t understand the rural areas of the west/mid-west and the size of the states.
I worked for a non-profit based out of New Hampshire for several years and the rule for mileage reimbursement was I wasn’t supposed to exceed 100mi each way, but was supposed to cover the entire state of WA. In the NE you can travel through 3 states in that distance while out here there are places where that is just going to the store.
Good story, Jason. And thanks for all the interesting extra information about rural US.
Now about hauling livestock. Farmers don’t haul livestock here. The job is either done by a livestock dealer or a haulage company, specialized in transporting livestock.
It’s a profession. You have to deal with cleaning/desinfection, registration and animal welfare. Many modern livestock trucks are equipped with a weighing system. Long distance rigs, like the one below, are climate controlled and have a drinking water system. Judging from the outside it might as well haul flowers or vegetables…
Livestock dealers often use an alu-trailer, towed by a diesel-SUV with a van-conversion (registered as a commercial vehicle). And many of them drive a 4×2 straight truck, like the Volvo FL612 I posted last February.
Regarding the 2012 Ram. It looks like it got a König (Koenig) tuning kit from the eighties. Just kidding.
One thing possibly already touched on: Since the deregulation of the trucking industry, cabovers are essentially nonexistent in the US in both the heavy-duty and medium-duty segments, except as specialty service vehicles in high-density urban areas. Fleet managers and drivers look at something like the Hino COE and see a truck that’s more difficult to service and repair, will be uncomfortable to drive when sitting over or in front of the front axle, is less aerodynamic on the open road, and might make the driver “first to the scene of the accident.” The space efficiencies of the cabover just aren’t necessary in most of the US.
Difficult to service and repair? Why? the cab tilts to allow access and anytghing to be added or checked by the driver is accessible without tilting, Comfort on European and newer Japanese cabovers is far superior to anything coming out of the US, you only have to drive one to find that out and aerodynamic/fuel efficiency is as good or better with a cabover on linehaul or over the road trucks,
I doubt a 1-ton pickup is going to be enough transport for a vocational farm, as opposed to a hobby farm, anywhere, so a pickup is effectively going to transport tools and equipment.
On the other hand for a hobby farm I imagine that other hauling tasks dictate the pickup used as much as anything. I imagine the incremental cost of a 1 vs 3/4-ton is not that significant in context.
To deviate from agriculture, I gather that a lot of builders in Europe use a small to medium box truck as a mobile workshop which can tow a trailer for any supplies or materials they don’t have delivered. Builders want to spend their time building not driving to get materials, because that is not productive.
Full-size pickups like this aren’t much more useful in Australia than a bigger truck, because they simply won’t fit in standard car parking spaces. The 99th-percentile vehicle used for designing them is 5.2m long – 204.7″. The standard parking lot aisle width is narrower than the length of the pickup featured!
John, in Europe high-roof panel vans are often used as a mobile workshop. Very often, as a matter of fact. Box trucks are only used to deliver materials, the small ones for city deliveries. Those are the chassis-cab versions of the big vans, with a flatbed or any other type of body (like an enclosed box).
And indeed, these vans often tow a trailer. Expensive materials, like tools and other equipment, are in the van. Safe (behind closed doors) and dry.
I probably should have mentioned vans, but I did see a Scania or similar used as a workshop outside a reasonably large building site, definitely not a delivery vehicle. Perhaps it was stonemasons or similar that needed the weight capacity?
Hard to guess…Could be something like this, certainly not a delivery vehicle.
And some box trucks can even operate as a huge, mobile saw. Not a delivery vehicle either.
I found a great photo on this webpage – sorry it’s embedded so you’ll have to scroll almost to the bottom, its the last photo of the first blog entry here (just above the daffodils story):
http://blog.buffalostories.com/tag/33/
The history of Buffalo’s expressways is actually very interesting and well written, but the photo of the construction site in 1970 really caught my eye. A large public works project with probably hundreds of construction workers on site – and not a single pick-up. Other than one Ford wagon, it’s all sedans. With trunks that can hold a toolbox and toolbelts as well as a pick-up bed I suppose.
Perhaps the nature of construction workers’ commutes or their needs have changed since 1970, but to partly answer what people with these jobs did in times when light trucks weren’t 60% of new car sales, at least some made do with a plain four-door sedan.
I have no experience, really, with the rural uses of pickup trucks. We have a 2000 Ford Ranger, and that has been enough of a pickup for our urban/suburban needs. My brother, though, years ago had a mid-1970s Chevy heavy-duty camper special crew cab pickup, with dual rear wheels, a 454 engine, and all the stuff to make hauling a big camper effortless. Eventually, as his kids grew, his needs changed, and he swapped with my dad, who gave him his 1982 Ford Fiesta. What did Dad do with the big Chevy pickup? Well, Dad was active in a budding transportation museum that was engaged in obtaining and restoring a trolley car of the same type that used to run in Tucson in the 1920s. That truck came in awfully handy for moving the car around and in any number of tasks in the project, including installing and exhuming track. The truck eventually found its way back to Texas, where it went to one of my nephews-in-law, who was starting his work as an electrician. That Chevy definitely earned its keep.
The big US-type pick-up truck is beginning to make in-roads into Australia. Recently Ford and Chrysler started getting serious about selling them into the Lucky Country. Previously the US auto makers could not really be bothered to send pretty much ANY of their US built vehicles to what they considered a tiny, dinky, distant market.
Aussies drive on the left side of the road and so US-made Australia-bound vehicles, pick-up trucks included, need to be right hand drive. It costs time and money to deal with this. There are various design problems to sort out in order to make vehicles suitable for Australia. Apart from that there are shed-loads of unique to Australia regulations and legislation to comply with (major time and money wasters all). There are also additional logistics and supply issues etc. This is all an effort to be undertaken for what would previously have been seen as a too small to sweat it market remember.
Until recent times the US owned Australian vehicle subsidiaries locally manufactured and distributed car-based utes throughout Australia. They sufficed. Of course, with the demise of Australian manufacturing circumstances are changed. It seems that a business case for bringing in the big pick-ups adds up now. The US makers would be aware there is no chance of cannibalising their own operations any more. They would also be acutely aware that since the demise of their local manufacturing operations, their market share in Australia has declined at an accelerated rate (General Motors subsidiary Holden is experiencing such a terminal collapse in sales that it is very close to abandoning Australia altogether – we may well see the end of Holden in 2020). Whatever sells, sells. No-one else has got anything equivalent or as capable as the US pick-ups for the price or in that niche. Hence the big US trucks are starting to arrive. Expect them to carve out a solid niche for themselves. They are likely to be successful (assuming the looming recession doesn’t hit rural Aussie as thoroughly as it will denizens of the urban Eastern coastline- fun times!).
Australia is much more like the US than many consider. Yes, there are differences in aspects of tradition and culture, but there are as many similarities. Over time the influences of increased wealth (primarily as the result of the successful mineral resources industry) and an excessive exposure to US entertainment media have tended to nudge Australians closer to US attitudes and expectations. The US pick-up trucks will not appear as alien, nor as excessive in dimension as once they would have. Barring sudden “unexpected” economic downturn, they’ll sell well enough.
As for the Hino truck. Capable, but definitely a 100% commercial company owned fleet vehicle type of deal. Aside from which it’d be interesting to see what the survival rates are for occupants of the cab in a head on smash up…..
Sounds fair enough – it makes me wonder how our farmers here in the UK manage to get by with a beat up old Land Rover.
There are many reasons to own super-heavy duty pickups, or even just full-size pickups, but even in our corners of upstate rural NY and Vermont a large majority of the owners of them own them… just because. 2 of our neighbors own full-size Rams, and in the last 3 years they’ve had them I doubt the bed cover has ever been off of them. Not a fan of gratuitous Bro-dozer ownership, but certainly don’t begrudge those who have legitimate reasons to own one, just the idiots that use them (and there are plenty) mainly to show off or intimidate other drivers.