America Needs a 50 MPG Pickup Truck
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What American needs right now is a domestically-built pickup truck that gets fifty miles per gallon (MPG). That’s just crazy talk you say? Fifty mpg in a pickup! But not nearly as insane as the fact that we had a 45 MPG pickup truck built right here in the United States … twenty-five years ago … and it slipped away …
Today’s best gas mileage pickup trucks, the Ford Ranger, Mazda B2300, and Toyota Tacoma, have EPA estimates in the mid 20s for highway and around 20 in the city. Now maybe these trucks are a good bit heavier and more powerful than the little truck that could (and still does), but it just makes you wonder … what have the auto manufacturers been doing for the past two and a half decades?
If we had not just one but two little pickup trucks that delivered close to twice the average MPG of today’s most thrifty trucks way back when, why don’t we have them today? Why have we gone backwards? It’s not like we need hybrid power in our little pickups, just something as obvious as the day is long, that runs for hundreds of thousands of trouble-free miles. Is that asking too much?
Can’t remember which little trucks delivered the goods back in the day? You’ll want to read up on the honest to goodness American-built 45 mile per gallon pickup truck …
[tags]pickup trucks[/tags]
2 Comments
steve
July 17th, 2007
at 4:14am
Dan,
I agree with you completely and not just about pick up trucks. Since the C.A.F.E. was started by Jimmy Carter in the 80’s it seems as though technology has either gone backwards or not moved at all. My first car was a 75 Toyota Celica that got 18 mpg with a 2.2 liter engine.Today that same 2.2 liter in a new Toyota gets maybe 4 or 5 gallons more, but conversly we had several small cars like the Honda CVCC or the Nissan Sentra that got 40-50 mpg, but now look at the new subcompacts and your lucky to get 30+ mile per gallon, yet you pay more for them, then you do for thier large siblings, the compact cars. You can even look at some of the old tank mobiles from yesteryear like a 70 Dodge Dart or a 64 Rambler or even an Edsel and some of those were getting in the thirty mile range, when gas was only a quarter. Go FIgure!
Garry
April 4th, 2008
at 10:31am
I have one of those 45MPG pickup trucks, and it is AWESOME! I often ask myself the same question…. Why is it that this 27 year truck gets 45MPG, is fun to drive, and stylish, yet there is NOTHING like it on the market today?
I think it all comes down to supply and demand. Once gas got cheap again, all us Americans cared about was more power, look at the horsepower figures of today’s car vs cars from the 80’s and the difference is unmistakable.
One caveat though is that cars are indeed much safer today than they once were, and the safety systems probably add SOME weight, but not enough to be reason for the horrible gas mileage.
Garry