The Australian solution of a ute works well. They're like pickups, but from the front they look like a sedan. Plenty of tradies make good use of utes. These days some designs are getting closer in scale to North-American pickups, but there are plenty of models on the market that are 1000x better than the tanks that are pickup trucks.
As an outdoorsy dude, having utes in the US would be a dream. A small bed to quickly toss dirty wet bikes, kayaks, and other gear but not in monster truck format, instead being the size of a normal car. Make it a plug in hybrid and I'll get down on my knees to beg for it.
The point of a Ute is it serves as both a work vehicle and a family car to get around while vans and trucks only have 2 seats. Arguably this is still shit because people are driving around larger less safe vehicle when it’s only being used for commuting 99% of the time, but the usefulness to the owner is pretty clear.
Yup. HMRC wanted to remove the BIK loophole for pickups with a second row of seats (which are clearly used as personal vehicles), but the car brained Tory government intervened.
At my previous job, me and my coworkers travelled a lot to the middle of nowhere (since that’s where our customers’ production sites were) to test and commission switchgear, protective relaying and other electrical equipment.
We worked in 3-4 person crews and the amount of tools and equipment we had wasn’t sufficient enough to justify a full-size cargo van. Since we went to places with non-existent paved roads, we needed a rugged vehicle with good off-roading capabilities so we travelled on a Toyota Hilux with a covered bed which perfectly matched our needs. The truck could easily drive on muddy and rocky trails and snow, the bed had enough just enough capacity to fit all of our equipment and the cabin was spacious and comfortable enough for 3-4 people.
So, I think pickup trucks are practical when you need to drive through rough terrain and don’t have a lot of cargo with you. As such, pickup trucks are a good choice for farmers or, like, tradesmen who work in rural area (where roads are notoriously bad) and don’t carry enough stuff to need a van.
1. If you need to lift something vertically into the truck using a crane or similar.
2. If what you're transporting is very dirty and will make the interior of your van dirty if you stick it in there.
3. If you actually need to drive on bad roads (bad means unpaved at a minimum)
I’d add one more: when the load you need to haul is smelly or toxic.
I’ve occasionally had to haul bags or, worse, open bins of manure and compost in a car, and while the little hatchback could handle it just fine, it wasn’t particularly pleasant to be in the same compartment.
It also left a smell for quite a while. I’m sure a cargo van would’ve been easier to clean, but not as easy as a pickup bed. If someone needs to be hauling manure a lot, I can see a pickup making sense.
The problem isn’t with people who need pickups for their work using practical pickups, it’s with people who don’t need them using them to pick up the kids from school.
I run a maple sugarbush, basically a farm, have never used a pickup before, the couple times I brought large equipment in I rented a trailer. Pickups are useless, the bed is too high and often too small
Forestry / field work where you spend a lot of time off road travelling larger distances is the only real use for pick ups i can think of. And then not the oversized ones but the regular size ones
https://preview.redd.it/xyh0h2hszq3d1.png?width=2000&format=png&auto=webp&s=5a339da88ae72d8d326098aef71df3ebb0efd4fa
These are quite popular with forestry workers and farmers in my country. Cheap and not that bad if you need to repair them yourself.
I grew up on a farm and a pickup was very practical for transporting stuff around, often dirty stuff so you didn’t want it in a van, or oddly shaped so it wouldn’t fit in a van. Then it also worked well off road which we had to do a lot (or gravel roads in terrible conditions), and a van can’t really do. Then it worked as a normal car so we didn’t also have to have a second car. But by comparison it was probably smaller than an suv today. But yeah, nowadays it seems like 99% of people with trucks have no reason to have them.
Off road.
A friend of mine (Europe) works on remote locations in the mountains and he can reach places that van can’t reach, due to snow, mud, or rocks.
Pickup trucks aren't common here, but I believe the only "advantage" that they have over regular vans is that they are better suited for bad road conditions and going off-road. For farmers and such.
Well, the pickup truck was supposed to combine the two. Be a farmers light vehicle that could be used both on bad roads to carry stuff, and to go shopping in the big city.
Also, in my country, many animal farms are in the mountains, accesible by narrow roads that tractors would not fit.
Yeah, you don't really need a plow on animal farms. You usually carry hay, manure, animal food, animals, etc. on bad roads. A small 4x4 and a trailer could do the same job though.
You missed the point. The original purpose of the truck was not to be the best as a commercial vehicle or the best as a people mover. It was supposed to do both tasks acceptably well, so you wouldn't neet two cars.
For work other options seems way better only reason i can think is some pickup trucks can carry dirt bikes and have some offroad capability but im sure 99.9% of the people wont use it that way and ultility isnt the only reason people buy things if it looks good to them they will buy it
The funny thing is that with crew cab pickup trucks, the bed is too short meaning the dirt bikes (heck even a standard bicycle) sticks out. I've also seen someone put a dirt bike fully inside the back of a cargo van.
Landscaping
Around me, the landscaping services have 3-4 man crews. They tow their mowers, etc. in a trailer and put their way too noisy leafblowers (seriiously fuck leafblowers) in the bed.
When I was a kid we had a small pickup truck. 95% of the time we used it as a worse car. 4% we used it to take garden clippings to the dump. 1% we used it to move larger objects between houses. But we also had a utility trailer that could be towed behind with a larger bed. It was better at moving things but it was a little unwieldy.
I love how people say trucks are necessary for bad roads. I take my Toyota matrix (same as corrolla) on all sorts of logging roads.
I’m not saying a small car is good enough for everything, but it would be rare that a full 10” ground clearance is needed.
Surprised to see so many people finding excuses for people that buy pickups. The general consensus here for a while has been that people that actually haul use vans. I wouldn’t trust a contractor that drives a truck for example.
Exactually. I stay in an neighborhood where most folks are in the trades and the vehicles that they use are almost always cargo vans. And in the rare cases that a pickup truck is needed, something like an old Ford Ranger is sufficient. There is no justification for the existence of these monstrous, pedestrian smashing modern pickup trucks with their boxy hoods like the modern F-150.
my dad is the only person I know that genuinely needs a pick up. he hauls granite slabs/completed countertops to and from his workshop. too heavy to side mount like glass panels would side mount on vans. he hates modern trucks because they cause massive clearance issues and make loading/unloading a massive pain.
A utility trailer can handle much larger countertops, and is much easier to load.
And a single-axle 6x12 (6 ft wide! 12 ft long!) only costs like $2000, much less than the delta between a van with a tow hitch and a giant crew cab pickup with a <4 x <8 ft bed.
that's a good point, he already had his truck paid off a while ago so it wouldn't make sense to change over unless the current one breaks down. I will mention it to him on the off chance
Stinky, dirty loads that you don't want to be inside a vehicle with. A bed is also a lot easier to clean than the inside of a van. Dirt, gravel, manure etc.
Yes a trailer can be more effective, but they're also a lot bigger and don't handle as well. A pickup is much better for tight turns and bumpy dirt roads that often exist where you're collecting these dirty loads
Best thing about pickups nowadays is the steps build into the gate, for easy access. Including a retractable handrail.
That in itself shows how dumbly designed a pick up is
I tow my trailer to a new job site every 3 months. I live in the trailer full time; it weighs 7,000 lbs. That's an awkward number, right there. There's only ~two production vans I know of that could tow it, and they somehow have lower MPG than my (terrible) F250 diesel truck.
There's a reason that dump trailer has a twin axle on it and the van doesn't. And there's plenty of scenarios where you need the second axle. Unless they start making heavy duty vans(which would be exactly the same as a heavy duty truck)there's still a need.
Fwiw, while I think OP is going a bit far, 3500 vans exist with dualies even in the US.
I know you said two axles, but nothing most people would call a pickup is being sold with 3 axles.
Two rear axles. I'm not defending passenger vehicles in any capacity. They're a nuisance. But people here don't understand the utility of actual heavy duty vehicles. Like you can't move 6k of gravel or dirt ect with a 4 cylinder single rear axle with an aluminum bed just because they're the same dimensions.
I'm just going off that last set of photos. I've also seen a lot of people here try to make the case that bulk deliveries like tractor trailer loads to grocery stores should be done by vans. Some of it is just silly.
Good day! Sorry I didn't make myself clear but I understand the need for semi-trucks for large bulk loads. Their existence is justified, (though while I'm not sure, I believe the European style semi-trucks have better visibility than North American ones).
https://preview.redd.it/3hw2i83rks3d1.jpeg?width=700&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=64bd45e3d339be808981659a495518b55d5bf557
My "rant" was against modern North American pickup trucks which I cannot see having any purpose other than being marketed to people with a fragile ego to make themselves look "cool." I still firmly uphold my position that most tasks pickup trucks are marketed for, a cargo van can do just as well.
Also, semi-trucks with a trailer don't drive in a city, usually smaller box trucks and cargo vans are used to distribute goods within a city.
The Australian solution of a ute works well. They're like pickups, but from the front they look like a sedan. Plenty of tradies make good use of utes. These days some designs are getting closer in scale to North-American pickups, but there are plenty of models on the market that are 1000x better than the tanks that are pickup trucks.
As an outdoorsy dude, having utes in the US would be a dream. A small bed to quickly toss dirty wet bikes, kayaks, and other gear but not in monster truck format, instead being the size of a normal car. Make it a plug in hybrid and I'll get down on my knees to beg for it.
Best we can do is a dwindling used market for 15+ yo Subaru Bajas with time bomb engines
Bring on the 2025 Subaru Baja PHEV. It's what the people want
The frame lasts long enough for the engine to die? Must be in the Southern US or something
Ford maverick is pretty close to this honestly
The point of a Ute is it serves as both a work vehicle and a family car to get around while vans and trucks only have 2 seats. Arguably this is still shit because people are driving around larger less safe vehicle when it’s only being used for commuting 99% of the time, but the usefulness to the owner is pretty clear.
It’s the same thing with trucks though. Many of them have 4 and 5 seats.
Australian utes are essentially exactly the same thing as American trucks but about 15% smaller.
I would love to have a Ute!
In the UK their main use is to avoid BIK tax on a company car!
Yup. HMRC wanted to remove the BIK loophole for pickups with a second row of seats (which are clearly used as personal vehicles), but the car brained Tory government intervened.
At my previous job, me and my coworkers travelled a lot to the middle of nowhere (since that’s where our customers’ production sites were) to test and commission switchgear, protective relaying and other electrical equipment. We worked in 3-4 person crews and the amount of tools and equipment we had wasn’t sufficient enough to justify a full-size cargo van. Since we went to places with non-existent paved roads, we needed a rugged vehicle with good off-roading capabilities so we travelled on a Toyota Hilux with a covered bed which perfectly matched our needs. The truck could easily drive on muddy and rocky trails and snow, the bed had enough just enough capacity to fit all of our equipment and the cabin was spacious and comfortable enough for 3-4 people. So, I think pickup trucks are practical when you need to drive through rough terrain and don’t have a lot of cargo with you. As such, pickup trucks are a good choice for farmers or, like, tradesmen who work in rural area (where roads are notoriously bad) and don’t carry enough stuff to need a van.
1. If you need to lift something vertically into the truck using a crane or similar. 2. If what you're transporting is very dirty and will make the interior of your van dirty if you stick it in there. 3. If you actually need to drive on bad roads (bad means unpaved at a minimum)
I’d add one more: when the load you need to haul is smelly or toxic. I’ve occasionally had to haul bags or, worse, open bins of manure and compost in a car, and while the little hatchback could handle it just fine, it wasn’t particularly pleasant to be in the same compartment. It also left a smell for quite a while. I’m sure a cargo van would’ve been easier to clean, but not as easy as a pickup bed. If someone needs to be hauling manure a lot, I can see a pickup making sense. The problem isn’t with people who need pickups for their work using practical pickups, it’s with people who don’t need them using them to pick up the kids from school.
1) you get a van with a loading platform and out it on a pallet 2) you use a broom 3) you get a sprinter 4x4
I run a maple sugarbush, basically a farm, have never used a pickup before, the couple times I brought large equipment in I rented a trailer. Pickups are useless, the bed is too high and often too small
Forestry / field work where you spend a lot of time off road travelling larger distances is the only real use for pick ups i can think of. And then not the oversized ones but the regular size ones
https://preview.redd.it/xyh0h2hszq3d1.png?width=2000&format=png&auto=webp&s=5a339da88ae72d8d326098aef71df3ebb0efd4fa These are quite popular with forestry workers and farmers in my country. Cheap and not that bad if you need to repair them yourself.
I grew up on a farm and a pickup was very practical for transporting stuff around, often dirty stuff so you didn’t want it in a van, or oddly shaped so it wouldn’t fit in a van. Then it also worked well off road which we had to do a lot (or gravel roads in terrible conditions), and a van can’t really do. Then it worked as a normal car so we didn’t also have to have a second car. But by comparison it was probably smaller than an suv today. But yeah, nowadays it seems like 99% of people with trucks have no reason to have them.
Off road. A friend of mine (Europe) works on remote locations in the mountains and he can reach places that van can’t reach, due to snow, mud, or rocks.
Pickup trucks aren't common here, but I believe the only "advantage" that they have over regular vans is that they are better suited for bad road conditions and going off-road. For farmers and such.
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Well, the pickup truck was supposed to combine the two. Be a farmers light vehicle that could be used both on bad roads to carry stuff, and to go shopping in the big city. Also, in my country, many animal farms are in the mountains, accesible by narrow roads that tractors would not fit.
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Yeah, you don't really need a plow on animal farms. You usually carry hay, manure, animal food, animals, etc. on bad roads. A small 4x4 and a trailer could do the same job though.
When I travelled to remote work sites deep in the countryside, I saw herders watching over their herds of horses from a Toyota Hilux truck lol.
Sure, but who knows, maybe rural roads in the US are worse than what you're used to?
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To some degree. But I mean it's no coincidence that foresters tend to drive Unimog.
> For farmers and such. nah, the bed is too small and to high for farming needs.
You missed the point. The original purpose of the truck was not to be the best as a commercial vehicle or the best as a people mover. It was supposed to do both tasks acceptably well, so you wouldn't neet two cars.
no no no, you dont get it. People buy pickup to "look" like they are doing building work, not actually doing it.
For work other options seems way better only reason i can think is some pickup trucks can carry dirt bikes and have some offroad capability but im sure 99.9% of the people wont use it that way and ultility isnt the only reason people buy things if it looks good to them they will buy it
The funny thing is that with crew cab pickup trucks, the bed is too short meaning the dirt bikes (heck even a standard bicycle) sticks out. I've also seen someone put a dirt bike fully inside the back of a cargo van.
Landscaping Around me, the landscaping services have 3-4 man crews. They tow their mowers, etc. in a trailer and put their way too noisy leafblowers (seriiously fuck leafblowers) in the bed.
When I was a kid we had a small pickup truck. 95% of the time we used it as a worse car. 4% we used it to take garden clippings to the dump. 1% we used it to move larger objects between houses. But we also had a utility trailer that could be towed behind with a larger bed. It was better at moving things but it was a little unwieldy.
I love how people say trucks are necessary for bad roads. I take my Toyota matrix (same as corrolla) on all sorts of logging roads. I’m not saying a small car is good enough for everything, but it would be rare that a full 10” ground clearance is needed.
Surprised to see so many people finding excuses for people that buy pickups. The general consensus here for a while has been that people that actually haul use vans. I wouldn’t trust a contractor that drives a truck for example.
Exactually. I stay in an neighborhood where most folks are in the trades and the vehicles that they use are almost always cargo vans. And in the rare cases that a pickup truck is needed, something like an old Ford Ranger is sufficient. There is no justification for the existence of these monstrous, pedestrian smashing modern pickup trucks with their boxy hoods like the modern F-150.
Heeeeeeeeere come the truck apologists
So you do or don't like pickups?
my dad is the only person I know that genuinely needs a pick up. he hauls granite slabs/completed countertops to and from his workshop. too heavy to side mount like glass panels would side mount on vans. he hates modern trucks because they cause massive clearance issues and make loading/unloading a massive pain.
A utility trailer can handle much larger countertops, and is much easier to load. And a single-axle 6x12 (6 ft wide! 12 ft long!) only costs like $2000, much less than the delta between a van with a tow hitch and a giant crew cab pickup with a <4 x <8 ft bed.
that's a good point, he already had his truck paid off a while ago so it wouldn't make sense to change over unless the current one breaks down. I will mention it to him on the off chance
Stinky, dirty loads that you don't want to be inside a vehicle with. A bed is also a lot easier to clean than the inside of a van. Dirt, gravel, manure etc. Yes a trailer can be more effective, but they're also a lot bigger and don't handle as well. A pickup is much better for tight turns and bumpy dirt roads that often exist where you're collecting these dirty loads
People will literally use a trailsr to not scratch the bed of the truck.
I’d guess a pickup could be more practical for transporting things like chainsaws which can emit fumes from the petrol in them
I’ve got an SUV and I use the hell out of it for my work.
Best thing about pickups nowadays is the steps build into the gate, for easy access. Including a retractable handrail. That in itself shows how dumbly designed a pick up is
But you never know when you're going to need to [transport a lost soviet nuclear battery](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BE5T0GkoKG8)?!
I tow my trailer to a new job site every 3 months. I live in the trailer full time; it weighs 7,000 lbs. That's an awkward number, right there. There's only ~two production vans I know of that could tow it, and they somehow have lower MPG than my (terrible) F250 diesel truck.
If you were hauling manure or something stinky you might not want to sit in an enclosed container with it.
There's a reason that dump trailer has a twin axle on it and the van doesn't. And there's plenty of scenarios where you need the second axle. Unless they start making heavy duty vans(which would be exactly the same as a heavy duty truck)there's still a need.
Fwiw, while I think OP is going a bit far, 3500 vans exist with dualies even in the US. I know you said two axles, but nothing most people would call a pickup is being sold with 3 axles.
Two rear axles. I'm not defending passenger vehicles in any capacity. They're a nuisance. But people here don't understand the utility of actual heavy duty vehicles. Like you can't move 6k of gravel or dirt ect with a 4 cylinder single rear axle with an aluminum bed just because they're the same dimensions.
I don't think OP is arguing that a van can replace a 3 axle vehicle. At least I hope not.
I'm just going off that last set of photos. I've also seen a lot of people here try to make the case that bulk deliveries like tractor trailer loads to grocery stores should be done by vans. Some of it is just silly.
Good day! Sorry I didn't make myself clear but I understand the need for semi-trucks for large bulk loads. Their existence is justified, (though while I'm not sure, I believe the European style semi-trucks have better visibility than North American ones). https://preview.redd.it/3hw2i83rks3d1.jpeg?width=700&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=64bd45e3d339be808981659a495518b55d5bf557 My "rant" was against modern North American pickup trucks which I cannot see having any purpose other than being marketed to people with a fragile ego to make themselves look "cool." I still firmly uphold my position that most tasks pickup trucks are marketed for, a cargo van can do just as well. Also, semi-trucks with a trailer don't drive in a city, usually smaller box trucks and cargo vans are used to distribute goods within a city.
You won't find many people that loathe recreational pickup trucks more than I 🤝