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Americans Drop An Average Of $44,000 On Full-Size Pickup Trucks

Ford F-150 Limited 1 photo
Photo: Ford
Featuring a starting price of $67,135 plus $1,595 for destination, the F-150 Limited is expensive by full-size pickup standards. The EcoBoost V6 from the Raptor, bundles of technologies, Camelback leather upholstery, and genuine wood trim are responsible for this price, but guess what?
More and more buyers are fine with spending $44,000 on average on a full-size workhorse, more dough than the starting price of a Mercedes-Benz C-Class compact executive sedan. As the Wall Street Journal highlights, “trucks that cost $50,000 or more were a rarity on dealer lots a decade ago.”

Based on data from J.D. Power, the Wall Street Journal reports an average price 61 percent higher than a decade ago. The industry-wide figure for every type of vehicle on sale in the United States rose by 28 percent to $32,500, which goes to show how much profit the Big Three in Detroit make by selling pickups.

On the other hand, it’s trucks that helped Ford, General Motors, and Fiat Chrysler offset the slow-selling passenger cars such as the Fusion, Impala, and Dart. In case the price of fuel rises without prior warning, all three automakers can mitigate this turn of events with the Ranger, Colorado, Canyon, and Gladiator.

Following Jeep, Ram is working on a mid-size pickup too. The successor of the Dodge Dakota is understood to share underpinnings with the 1500 and Gladiator. Ram’s all-new Dakota is expected in 2020 for the 2021 model year with the Pentastar V6 as the standard engine.

Turning our attention back to the full-size segment, Ford is developing the F-150 Hybrid as well as an all-electric powertrain. General Motors wants a piece of the action too, taking an e-truck into consideration for the GMC brand instead of Chevy to justify the higher-than-average starting price.

On an ending note, there’s no escaping the fact that Ford, General Motors, and Fiat Chrysler will continue offering expensive configurations for their full-size pickups as long as there’s demand for such trucks. The question is, when and what will stop this trend?
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About the author: Mircea Panait
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After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well.
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