Heavy Lifting:
Pickups Haul at CAS
Pickup trucks remain the lifeblood
of large-scale automakers, though,
at times, their big-picture economic
impact remains underappreciated.
These tough-as-nails, versatile
workhorses pump enormous
employment opportunities into the
market as most are built on U.S.
soil, putting friends, family and neighbors to work.
Automakers enjoy a tidy return on investment as each
one rolls off the assembly line and truck buyer brand
loyalty remains sky high when contrasted with younger
car buyers. Not to mention, pickup popularity continues
setting records.
A BIG truck for a big job
Ford’s light duty, full-size F-150 has ranked as the
best-selling vehicle of any size here in the states for the
past three-and-a-half decades — a remarkable, un-broken
stretch not soon duplicated. Accepting the silver medal
during much of that span were the Chevrolet’s Silverado
and near-twin GMC Sierra. In fact, domestic pickups
from Ford, GM and Dodge/Ram have dominated sales.
In late 2009, Ram split from the sporty Dodge division
to become a stand-alone ‘truck’ division within Fiat
Chrysler Automobiles (FCA).
Always up for a bit of friendly competition, Asian-
Pacific automakers have invested mightily in product and
assembly facilities here in America for a bigger slice of
the market pie. Toyota opened an assembly complex in
San Antonio, Texas, in 2006 to build the full-size, second-
generation Tundra, adding mid-size Tacoma production
in 2010. Nissan also christened a states-based assembly
center in Canton, Miss., in 2003 to construct a then-all-
new full-size Titan. During the second-generation 2016
redesign, Titan became the first Asian pickup offering
a larger capacity variant; the Titan XD, marketed on a
sliding scale with credentials falling somewhere between
medium (2500) and heavy duty (3500).
Midsize for the masses
Today, Chevrolet and GMC are the only domestic
automakers offering a midsize pickup with their Colorado
and Canyon, respectively. However, Ford just announced
the return of the Ranger for the 2019 model year. Toyota
offers the midsize Tacoma and Nissan the Frontier.
Honda’s mid-size Ridgeline remains an outlier of sorts;
the “urban sombrero” of pickups opting for a car-like uni-
By Dave Boe
DriveChicago.com, Daily Herald Newspaper
More Than100 , 000 Veh i c l es Jus t A Cl i ck Away…Dr i veCh i cago. com
CHICAGO AUTO SHOW 2017
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