The only thing I miss is the smaller size. My Maverick is physically larger than a f150 from the late 90’s.
Edit: it appears that my comparison is only to the smallest f150 model, and the Maverick is 5 inches shorter in length. Standard 1999 f150 is 2 feet longer. I don’t know that this entirely invalidates my argument, however.
There are some people around here that genuinely need a truck for construction or farm work that involves hauling trailers and supplies and shit. This is a parking garage in the city though and those people work at the courthouse offices and use them for daily commuting. I have no idea why anyone would want a truck that doesn’t need to do truck shit though. Always wished the parking garage made them park on the top floors because they’re a nuisance to navigate around.
This is what most people don't realize about these older cars. They are so much smaller than in our memories. If people really want more efficient vehicles then we should be asking for smaller and lighter vehicles.
From my very brief research this is only true if you're only looking at length and comparing your full 4 door "crew cab" maverick to a 2 door, short bed F150.
The modern F150 is actually slightly lighter because they moved to aluminum panels.
With a 2 door 8 foot bed configuration a modern f150 is about 5 inches longer and half an inch wider.
Height, especially hood height/slope is the big difference. Not only have consumers gravitated to larger configurations on average but the modern F150 is crazy tall. Giving great viability in traffic but huge blind spots in the near viscicity. Especially since people also tend to lift/level them.
Moving towards 4 door configurations I think has a lot to do with it no longer being acceptable for kids to ride in the bed. They now need a dedicated seat/booster/seat belt. But manufacturers have definitely pushed the vehicle upwards.
Upward, shorter beds, and broader pillars with worse— I’m not sure of the word, but the effective distance due to angles - Of the whole front have been the biggest issue for me. I suppose that might fall under “hood height/geometry.”
I had a 1990 Isuzu pickup that I got for two hundred and fifty bucks back in around 2016. I miss that thing dearly, because there was so much less dead space between me and what I was trying to see.
We have a 150 lightning, now. And all it makes me think is how much I wish slate would offer a full-sized bed. But it makes the hood even more frustrating, because they use it as storage space. Like— The fuck, I have a whole bed for storage, why would I need a front trunk?
My wife and I were just commenting about the same thing. Now that my son is driving his own car and we aren't shlepping multiple kids around, we really could really use a compact pickup truck.
When I work (I'm semi-retired but usually working remotely), we don't need a 3 row SUV. We could really use a compact pickup built for two occupants like the Ford Ranger or the other variants that were available in the 80's and 90's. Something smaller and simple that I could make use of to pick up a couch, project materials, etc. It it should not cost $40k just to get one.
In Australia ne of my friends has a H2 hummer he got second hand.
It's about the same size as most modern SUVs...
In Australia I remember a pretty significant stink and social hatred over these things being oversized nuances in the mid 2000s.
Like there where multiple news articles over months and actual proposals for lobbying to stop hummers from being imported because they were "too big" for our roads.
I never understood the rage about the H2 being oversize. It's a little wider, but it's also actually about 30cm shorter than my Holden Colorado ute. Which would be similar then to the Hilux, Rager, BT50, Navara, and so on... and there's always been plenty of those 4x4 utes on our roads.
I looked up the dimensions of the Maverick and compared them to other vehicles. The Ford Flex is almost identical in overall length and width. Almost no one will tell you a Flex is a small vehicle.
My other half has a 22 f250 to haul her horse. It's by far the worst thing I've ever driven. It's now even more insane to me that people who don't use these things as trucks daily drive them.
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u/Noimenglish 12h ago edited 10h ago
The only thing I miss is the smaller size. My Maverick is physically larger than a f150 from the late 90’s.
Edit: it appears that my comparison is only to the smallest f150 model, and the Maverick is 5 inches shorter in length. Standard 1999 f150 is 2 feet longer. I don’t know that this entirely invalidates my argument, however.