r/Trucks 6d ago

Will trucks ever become awesome again? Discussion / question

I bought my first truck recently, a 2017 F-150 SCSB with the 5.0 and the 6 speed. 4x4. It has NOTHING. Manual windows, manual locks, I consider the A/C system to be the most luxurious aspect of the vehicle. I love it to death.

Is that era totally over and have I scored the last of its kind? Will we ever see boxy, simple, spacious trucks again? The free market is supposed to dictate what gets produced but between government regulations and what people are buying, it seems like every new truck is just amber running lights, plastic everything, complicated and expensive tech...

I feel a little bit hopeless about what the future holds for pickups, but I also think that if they made a real pickup for the pickup crowd, like literally brought back bricknoses and square bodies with nothing more than a modern power train (not too modern; a naturally aspirated V8 will do just fine) and modern suspension, they'd be knockouts with trades companies, simple people like myself, broke blue collar guys... How do we get them to put 4 wheel drive under metal boxes again without ipads for climate controls?

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u/wrenchandrepeat 5d ago

The market does dictate it...

And the market is luxury trucks that can haul a family and a bed that rarely gets used.

The people that buy base trucks strictly for work are a minority or company fleets.

Also, the switch for trucks moving from a bare-bones work horse to more luxurious people movers started in the 90s.

Your truck certainly won't be the last of its kind, as fleets still buy base trucks all the time. Some companies even keep a subset of those trucks practically unchanged from a previous iteration just for that purpose (Ram 1500 classic).

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u/Drzhivago138 2018 F-150 XLT SuperCab/8' 5.0 HDPP 5d ago

Also, the switch for trucks moving from a bare-bones work horse to more luxurious people movers started in the 90s.

Or even the '60s, when the camping craze took off and people demanded carpet and A/C. The '70s and '80s just accelerated the trend.