I used to own a pickup—a Toyota SR5 from the early '90s, back when you could still get something smaller than the Leviathans stalking around new-car lots today. While I was out of town, I lent the truck to my friend Jonny. He crashed it into a taxi while I was on my first date with the woman I would marry a couple of years later.
The insurance company totaled it, and I bought the most similar thing I could afford: an old SUV with a rusty bumper. It did what I needed. You could jam a sheet of plywood in the back, and its unfussy interior seemed impervious to the grime-caked tools I regularly threw into it. The lady and I took our first road trip in that old 4Runner, and then I sold it to Jonny's brother when I moved to New York City to live with Christine.
We've since moved to California, and I want my damn pickup back. I mean, not that truck; it's in heaven. But I still want a rig I can use to haul stuff around. Now that I have less time and a little more money, though, I'd like something that always starts and doesn't need you to blip the gas pedal to get it into third gear.
Joe Brown
Executive Editor
Joe Brown is WIRED’s executive editor.
We recently got a new vehicle—an Acura RDX, which is a small and anodyne SUV that's as inoffensive as a chocolate chip cookie. It's fine, but it's soulless. I had wanted a truck, and Christine, who learned to drive in an old F-150, would have been cool with one too.
So what stopped us? Even the smallest of the latest “small” trucks are huge, and we live in a city. The modern equivalent of my old pickup is bigger in every dimension: more than a foot longer and 1,600 pounds fatter. It occupies the same space in Toyota's product line, but it's not for the same person.
A new Tacoma hauls more, pulls more, and stands up to more than my dear departed ride did. It also hauls more, pulls more, and stands up to more than a regular person needs. I'm not a ranch hand, I'm a yuppie carting my hobbies around.
So there I am: making runs to Lowe's, laying down blankets in the back of the compromise-mobile, wondering why nobody makes a small small truck anymore.
The answer, of course, is that companies do; they just don't sell them in the US. The Fiat Strada, available in Europe, where safety and emissions standards are similar to those of the US, is a full 3 feet shorter than a fresh Tacoma. And it looks like an angry tapir-bot—totally the style I'm going for. Come on, automakers, there's a market here!
Or maybe not: “In 1994, small trucks were 8 percent of the US auto market. As of last year, they were 1.6 percent,” says Mike Levine, communications manager for Ford Trucks, whose 2015 Ranger is small, capable, dope-looking, and not for sale in America. But I just need something for lugging around old motorcycle parts, garden supplies, and half-ass home-built furniture. “People who want a compact vehicle that can haul have a lot more options,” Levine says, and it's true: You can get a minivan or a crossover like I did. So it makes sense for companies to focus on capable trucks for ranchers—after all, more than half of this country's 2.3 billion acres are used for agriculture.
It's still a bummer, though, and the number of very shiny pickups on the street makes me feel not-alone in wanting a truck that won't see the hardest duty. This is not market research, I know, but come on! Attention automakers: Please sell your small trucks in America. And while I'm pleading, can you make one of them electric?
Editor's note: Joe is currently in the market for a used pickup, from back in the day when they were small.
Joe Pugliese / GROOMING BY AMY LAWSON / ARTIST UNTIED; STYLED BY JOANNA ANDREONI/ARTIST UNTIED
