Nice. Mine was Cayman Green, a couple of shades lighter than yours and a 4-banger, but similar otherwise.

My current daily driver, which I won't upload my own photo of because it's literally enough to dox me (by people who know me IRL), is one of these:

It's not an SUV, but air suspension allows it to rise taller than some crossover SUVs, providing decent clearance. And on the road you can lower and stiffen it for better handling (or keep it in the comfort position for normal height and soft suspension). Both axles are always being driven, with front and rear diff locks being electronic, based on the ESP system.

It doesn't do as much work as your truck, but then I don't live on a farm. If I did, I'd have a truck too. It does however do significantly more work than any of those pavement princesses. In particular, it's been used for towing trailers, I've had the entire trunk, with rear seats folded down, filled when I moved most of my furniture. I've gone off road in it because I needed to go to the woods. Everything was muddy afterwards.

I'll use yank units for the fun of it, so it's got around 250k miles on it. It's a remapped 3.0 diesel, so it does over 40 mpg very easily unloaded, and can keep up with pretty much anything on the road because of the ridiculous amount of torque it puts out. I paid less than 2k EUR for it (paid pretty much exactly 2000 USD given current exchange rates actually). With all the torque it has, you could also easily tow way more than the legal limit of such a vehicle - which I've never needed to.

It's also rusty, scratched up, dented, etc. Some of the unnecessary extras don't work (park distance control? lol no, it's shorted out) It's not the best car I've owned, but it's the best one I've had for getting shit done. 3 months and 6000 miles so far, I've spent ~500 to replace some safety-critical neglected parts (brake, suspension) some of which will last the next 100k miles and some hopefully indefinitely (updated to a newer, more reliable ABS module).

It wasn't cheap for the first person who bought it, but neither are modern trucks. It was cheap to buy used though, unlike trucks. Parts are cheaper too, but that's partly because I'm in Europe.

I see F350 work trucks all the time but they rarely have stock beds, most of them run a full dedicated tool box usually with ladder racks or a custom bed made of diamond sheet. Same deal for the 550 and 650 if they aren't box trucks.

Your truck reminds me of the garage kept spare cars I see on farms. Sometimes they just live outside near the house but they get driven. Often to pull the bigger trucks out of mud somehow

Everyone I know uses them pretty consistently to tow.

Is even softer data than what I posted, and softer than the old survey you were complaining about.

The ranger only tows 8000 lbs iirc. Not enough for me. I'd probably get a large SUV at that point. I think most people I've met with bigger trucks care mostly about towing capacity vs having a bed.

I agree there is a gap in what you want, I just personally think the use case is less common and not what I want haha.

Tax carbon, by raising gas tax. Let the market figure out the details. This lets the market optimize for efficiency instead of optimize towards defeating the entire point of regulation.

Why can't they make the Maverick a 2 door!

The Slate is the currently the only modern option for a mini-truck (if it releases).

And those people who do buy trucks would often be happy with a much smaller one. They don't exist. No, not even the Maverick. That's "well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it" for trucks.

I had an 06 Ford Ranger (actually a Mazda). RWD with a 4 cylinder and a 5 speed. No frills at all. That was a phenomenal truck. You could put snow tires on it, throw some sand bags in the bed, and go just about anywhere.

I honestly doubt it they would even look at a smaller vehicle now. Most of the people I run into vastly overestimate their needs in a vehicle. They get a diesel 3/4 ton to tow their 4000lb boat because they "need" the towing capacity to do it. They would not believe that if they got the right model the Maverick, it could easily handle their needs.

I get an insane amount of comments about my work setup when I am fully loaded. "You need a bigger truck." No I fucking don't. It's a F150 with a 16' 10K trailer. The truck's legal towing max is 10,200lbs. It's engine is rated for 13,000lbs. Since I am using it for commercial use I have a maximum towing of 10,000lbs. Any more would require a DOT registration and pay fees crossing state borders etc. It's a well balanced setup that I do around 100 deliveries with per year.

I could go up to a larger setup but the cost/benefit analysis doesn't add up. I would save approximately 5 trips per year (around 20 hours) having a larger capacity but it would cost me $15K more per year in expenses for a 3/4 ton diesel truck and 17K trailer.

In memory of my 95 extended cab

In memory of my 95 extended cab

Sales figures don’t support it. There is some demand, but not enough to redesign the platform to support 2-door. That’s a consequence of unibody design, 2 door is a completely different engineering from 4 door.

2 door trucks are barely available for consumers these days, you practically have to get them off the fleet lots.

Small electric trucks are coming. Slate is marketing like crazy to drive up demand. Telo is struggling to get to market. CAFE killed small gas trucks. That’s probably OK, electric is more suited for small trucks anyway, just need truck people to understand how much better electric is on small platforms vs 4cyl.

Yep. But I'm not out hating people over it. I'd actually like to know.

Telo is also struggling to get to market and will be a much better choice than Slate if they make it. They’re not nearly as well funded though.

I wish I’d never sold mine. It would still be running today if I had kept it.

Yeah, because you're in a big truck, and not a sensibly sized car getting pinched between a brodozer and a concrete barrier everyday.

Perfectly fair. You can have what you want. I just want to have what I want.

I'm trying to buy a compact on Autotrader and compacts are selling for more than low-end full size, so I think there's a demand.

No I'm mostly in my Miata or my bike. Again, y'all just invent things.