Question Of The Day: What The Truck Do You Want?

Jack Baruth
by Jack Baruth

Yesterday I told a story about a colleague of mine who was lookin’ for love in all the large places. Because this is TTAC, the conversation in the comments quickly turned to the traction merits of various drivetrain systems. You crazy kids. I bet that when most of you think about Fast Times At Ridgemont High, your minds immediately go to the one scene where we get a good look at the voluptuous curves of … Judge Reinhold’s 1960 LeSabre.

We’ve had a lot of conversations about trucks lately, whether it’s a Nissan Frontier, a Toyota Tacoma, or a Honda Ridgeline. You could say that we’re in some kind of trucking phase, and that it might be a while before we get the truck out of here.

So, what the truck do you want?

Speaking personally, I actually want two completely different trucks.

I want a traditional quarter-ton mini-truck to run my bikes around, with a low ride height and a stick shift. Two-wheel-drive only, please.

But I also want a crew-cab one-ton long-bed monster that tows a race car with the kind of insouciance you only get when you outweigh your trailer by a factor of two and a half to one. And that could be 4WD, because why not? In fact, last year I towed my Neon about 1700 miles to and from a race with a Dodge Power Wagon and I was totally satisfied with it — but you can bet your Captain Hook Fish & Chips hat that I’d rather ride my son’s TT-R90 on my errands than steer that beast around the suburbs.

Pick your truck. Or your trucks. Just to make things interesting, let’s cap your total spend at $75,000 just to keep the International CXT or the AMG 6×6 out of the equation. And let’s say no more than two trucks. Which would be — wait for it — moving in stereo!

[Image: Ford]

Jack Baruth
Jack Baruth

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  • DirtRoads DirtRoads on Jan 30, 2017

    I'm late to the game here as usual. 1990 Chevy work truck, 2WD, 4.3 V6 TBI, long bed, manual, no air, no electric locks, nothing fancy anywhere except the decals on the door that say "W/T" (which the ex took off with a razor blade years ago for some inexplicable reason), and paid for years ago. Oh wait, that's the truck I do have! I can haul full size sheets of plywood, tow my boat, and park it in the winter when the snow is up to the axles. Who needs more than that? Oh Jack, I can also haul bicycles and tow a trailer with a car on it. Maybe not FAST, but I'll still get there before the race.

  • Ddrap14 Ddrap14 on Feb 11, 2017

    AAA, I wanted the 6x6, but then I'll either have a Nissan Titan or a regular G-Class.

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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