This obsession for American pickup trucks on UK roads is insane. Dave, you live on a fucking estate in Doncaster not on the prairies of Montana. Tax the bastards to oblivion
@anon_opin I would just like to add something here. I DO live in the praries of Montana, well mountains more so, and drive a pickup truck. And I'd just like to remind everyone that we WANT smaller trucks. I remember when I bought mine looking everywhere for a reasonably priced s10, or ranger that I could work on, would be simple, and cheap. But NOOOOO, we can't have small economic vehicles because they don't meet "emission standards" in the US, and our government even systemically removed these cars from the supply through state-backed programs. Which may sound like its an attempt to help the enviornment but in fact does just the opposite. See American's would love smaller trucks, they're cheaper, fuel efficient, and you don't have to struggle to park the damn things in a Walmart. The reason we're stuck with this though, like most horrible things, traces back to Ronald Reagan. See during the Reagan era a bill was passed which set a fuel efficiency standard on vehicles that said car manufacturers must make vehicles a bit more fuel efficient each year. This worked for a little bit but soon we reached the limits of how efficient engineers could refine a design between iterations, which led to the realization of a loophole. Someone noticed that the method of calculating fuel efficiency was based on the size of the wheelbase of the vehicle compared to its efficiency, so if engineers couldn't change one side of the ratio, they'd just change the other. And here we are after 30 fucking years of watching vehicles balloon out in size to the point that its ridiculous. And now me and MANY other American's who do require a pickup to haul feed, livestock, materials or any number of things, are forced to choose between paying an unreasonable amount for one of the few remaining older models, or buying a newer one. And now I'm here stuck with a "half ton" truck thats larger our old 3500 from the 90s. My point in all of this is please stop blaming americans and thinking this is some cultural phenomena that makes us want to buy cars that cost 3 times as much and get a 16 miles to the gallon. We don't. But car companies want you to think we do.
@bebop @anon_opin had a mate with one of the little Subaru 4wd utes (brumby /brat), best thing ever in difficult country, remember doing some fencing with him and he would put it in places I didn't think possible. Not really for towing but practical and versatile and about the size of a family sedan if that. 90s version of a k-truck?
@curiously @anon_opin they're called the Baja here and they're the coolest car ever haha.