Smaller Trucks, Bigger Loyalty: VW Sees a Place for Truly Compact Pickups

Volkswagen has been flagrantly displaying new pickups at trade shows for a couple of years now, and with good reason. Domestic trucks have grown very large. In 1993, you could still purchase the Ford F-Series in a format where its maximum length did not exceed 197 inches. Today, the F-150 gets no smaller than 209 inches with a standard cab. Meanwhile, the now mid-sized Ranger, sold only in SuperCab and SuperCrew guise, grew from to 181 inches in overall length to a whopping 211 inches within the same timeframe.

The supersizing of the North American pickup created an interesting opportunity for manufacturers, and Volkswagen took notice.

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  • Mike Bradley Driveways, parking lots, side streets, railroad beds, etc., etc., etc. And, yes, it's not just EVs. Wait until tractor-trailers, big trucks, farm equipment, go electric.
  • Cprescott Remember the days when German automakers built reliable cars? Now you'd be lucky to get 40k miles out of them before the gremlins had babies.
  • Cprescott Likely a cave for Witch Barra and her minions.
  • Cprescott Affordable means under significantly under $30k. I doubt that will happen. And at the first uptick in sales, the dealers will tack on $5k in extra profit.
  • Analoggrotto Tell us you're vying for more Hyundai corporate favoritism without telling us. That Ioniq N test drive must have really gotten your hearts.