Posted on 06/12/2011 8:22:40 AM PDT by nhwingut
After a great ride, the days of big pickup trucks driving sales and profits for U.S. car companies is over for good, a victim of rising fuel costs, a troubled economy and changing consumer tastes.
About half of the pickup market -- the buyer who didn't need a pickup for his work -- evaporated over the past decade. That same buyer isn't likely to return as he has in the past, industry experts say.
The big pickup, an American icon, has been down-and-out many times before but has always managed to stage a comeback whenever times were good. That cheered automakers since their outsized profit margins padded earnings.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
It’s virtually impossible to find cars out here in West Texas. Everybody still has massive pickup trucks...some are work trucks, but not all of them.
Blew me away when I moved here...not many had trucks in Kansas anymore.
Well, not a pickup driver, but how the heck do you cart around . . . “stuff”? It won’t fit in a minivan-—either too long, too tall, too bulky. I mean, WTF?
Isn’t this article plagarized from 1981?
Didn’t they recently change the emissions standards for pickups?
Liberals fear the truck for its iconic message of strength, freedom and individuality.
The government should appoint a Pick-Up Truck Czar to determine who has a legitimate business need to be driving a truck and who is merely joy riding. There must be no joy in America.
The era of the pickup truck is not over. If the U.S. government doesn’t like pickup trucks that’s their problem.
Did anyone consider that pickup truck sales are down because the economy is bad and Obozo’s policies are idiotic and buying a new one right now is not prudent? I am driving a 2000 Silverado with over 160K miles on it and won’t buy another one until I can see a change in the national politics.
I am lucky to be alive, but had to have my neck fused and am scheduled to have my lower back fused. I have not been, nor will I ever, be the same. I am missing out on the best years because my boy is 9 and I can barely play with him.
I would buy a tank if I could.
Kinda like guns. If no one had guns, neither would I. If everyone just had sedans, so would I (The smart cars are farcical).
On my property, there are 6 pickups and they are used every week, not driven, used.
People need work vehicles, when I take the wife to dinner, its in a cadillac, when I need something done, it's in the pickup!
Well, that’s interesting. Here on the farm I currently use a 1/4 ton truck for just about everything. And quite seriously, I see the need to move up to a full one ton truck for towing the various trailers I use in my farming business.
So for my self and I am assuming the other citizens of this country doing farming a pickup truck is not a luxury but a necessity.
On a different note what will the terrorists and guerrilla fighters over in the middle east use if manufacturers like Toyota no longer fabricate their favorite vehicles.
I’m feel sure this ‘death’ has been declared before, probably more than once, starting with the Arab oil embargo in the early ‘70s.
"...pickup trucks like Ford's F Series and Chevrolet Silverado, No. 1 and No. 3 on our list, respectively, are still among the best-sellers, but most of the vehicles flying out of dealer showrooms this spring are fuel-efficient passenger cars like the Toyota
In addition F150 sale are up some 19%.
If I have to have just one vehicle it isn't going to be a Prius. It has to be a full size pick-up or a real SUV like my '98 Durango.
If they would go back to the useful pickups, instead of the “show off” pickups, people would buy them.
I’m six feet tall, and I can’t reach over the side of a pickup. To get a tractor or rototiller in and out of a modern pickup, you need ten feet of ramp.
They changed the design so that they all look jacked up, but they aren’t.
First company that comes out with a good old fashoned pickup with a low eight foot bed wins my money.
ok....now find me an energy friendly alternative that can go off road through the mud, carrying about 750 pounds of tools on a daily basis, and throw in 100 gallons of diesel in a transfer tank.
Then hitch a 20 foot trailer on the back of of that, and throw 5 tons of machinery or materials on top and head out one direction or another in a 50 mile radius of home, and you have an average day in the life of my F-250 pick-up.
Agreed. I don’t always “need” my truck but when I do, my F150 saves me money on wasted trips making it far more economical than any Prius.
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