QOTD: When Will Pickups Cost $100,000?
An unnamed product planner for an unnamed truck company candidly told me off the record once: “There is no ceiling for trucks right now. It’s incredible.”
He’s right. Ford’s announcement yesterday of a truck that’ll likely sniff $60,000 to start is a far cry from your grandfather’s Ram that he bought for three dairy cows and a handful of sawdust.
Reuters reported that the average sale price for a full-size pickup is $42,429, which is 30-percent higher than it was six years ago. Certainly, trucks don’t have 30-percent more stuff or 30-percent more anything to justify the price hike. Truckmakers are just being good ol’ capitalists and testing what the market will bear.
And apparently it’ll bear a lot.
It’s hard to say if trucks have reached Nero-levels of excess yet, but it’s only a matter of time before the bubble bursts — after all, economics follows the law of gravity too. Who builds and when will it leave the factory with a six-figure tag? It’ll come sooner rather than later, is my guess.
A bit of background: We couldn’t price out a six-figure truck yet. We were close with Ford’s Super Duty F-250 Platinum, but that topped out at just under $74,000. The most expensive non-luxury vehicle we could make was a Chevrolet Suburban with every option — including a man-made ski mountain, or something on its roof — thrown at it, at just over $80,000. Volvo, who loves that it’s a “premium” brand and not “luxury,” will sell you a luxury-ish XC90 for just over $93,000.
That means bupkis for pickups, however. They follow their own law of profitability right now, evidenced yesterday by the F-150 Limited, which is only limited in the numbers that they’ll sell.
So how about it B&B: When will a pickup cost $100,000?
More by Aaron Cole
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These expensive pickups are Cadillacs for people who don't want to be seen driving Caddies.
As long as these expensive trucks are selling well then all the manufacturers will provide them. Eventually these luxury trucks will peak and then customers will go to the next popular vehicle. When these luxury trucks become the norm then then many will want something different. For now this is extra profit on an existing product which even if they are heavily discounted the manufacturers still make a hefty profit.