Will trucks ever become awesome again?

[u/cakeba]

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?

[u/Brucenotsomighty]

I think a lot of people would argue the era of simple trucks was over long before 2017 lol

[u/AntiSonOfBitchamajig → u/Brucenotsomighty]

Everything peaked in the mid / late 90s IMO as a mechanic / engine hobbyist.

[u/texasroadkill → u/AntiSonOfBitchamajig]

I feel the mid 2000s was the best. New enough to be great and still simple to work on.

[u/AntiSonOfBitchamajig → u/texasroadkill]

Well, it depends on when the company shifted with all the emissions laws. Some errr, dropped the ball on that, some sooner than others but the whole thing was a hiccup. You get injection change, and despite being the same block and parts... it was 10x less reliable.