Posted on 11/07/2017 2:28:56 AM PST by jjotto
Don’t worry, they aren’t suffering. As shown by the rise of pickup trucks as daily drivers and family haulers in North America, Europe’s burgeoning love affair with versatile light trucks isn’t hurting the owners. It’s traditional passengers car makers who must worry.
Sales stats arriving from the Continent show a marketplace that’s increasingly different from years gone by. The increasing popularity of SUVs and crossovers in the land of diesels, manual transmissions, and small displacements is nothing new, but the exploding popularity of honest-to-God pickups is.
According to JATO Dynamics data published by Automotive News Europe, midsize pickup sales in Europe rose 19 percent in the first half of 2017. While that only amounts to 80,300 pickups sold, a fraction of the 216,194 sold in the U.S. in Q1 2017, the segment’s just getting started. Some analysts expect volume to top 200,000 units next year.
What’s fueling the hunger for a vehicle type long associated with public works crews, laborers and nothing else? Choice, for one thing, but also — to some degree — government regulations.
With fuel economy and emissions standards growing ever stricter, the traditional body-on-frame SUVs used by the well-heeled to pull trailers and boats are dwindling from the marketplace. Crossovers, especially those with small-displacement turbocharged engines and multi-cog transmissions, can’t cut it. Enter the body-on-frame midsize truck and its often hefty towing capacity.
In the UK, by far the biggest truck-buying country in Europe, the demise of the revered Land Rover Defender made consumers take a second look at the Ford Ranger for such duties. Pickup sales rose 17 percent in the UK in the first half of 2017. In Germany, it was 15 percent. France saw pickup sales rise 20 percent, while sales in Sweden and Italy rose 24 and 20 percent, respectively.
So promising is the fledgling segment, automakers are scrambling to field European-market pickups. Volkswagen already sells its Amarok, while Nissan’s Navara, Mitsubishi’s L200/Triton, Fiat’s Fullback, Ford’s Ranger, and Toyota’s Hilux round out the available offerings. Catering to buyers in the luxury market, Mercedes-Benz’s X-Class appears this year.
Renault — hardly a name you associate with rugged, do-anything private vehicles — is now considering whether it should sell its overseas-market Alaskan pickup (based, like the X-Class, on the Navara) in Europe. Meanwhile, PSA Group, maker of Citroën and Peugeot cars, wonders whether it should enter the fray or risk being left behind. The French automaker announced a joint venture with China’s Changan Automobile in September for a midsize, Chinese-market pickup. Maybe Europeans would like it, too.
With the exception of the Ranger, which comes to America in 2019, there’s little Detroit presence in the European truck field. If you’ve got the cash to spend, importers like AEC Europe will get you behind the wheel of a Ram 1500, which is exactly what one French man did.
In a recent interview with Trucks.com, Philippe Leroy describes his purchase of a gas-guzzling, lane-hogging 1500 back in 2009. The French cards were stacked against the obese American vehicle, but he soon grew to love it. He’s bought a new one from a Paris importer every two years since.
“At first, they don’t understand why I’m driving such a car,” Leroy said of the naysayers. “But when I talk about the benefits for buying this car, they understand. It’s the perfect truck for everyday living.”
There is nothing like a truck, and there is nothing like a Ford. Although I had to leave my F150 in the USA, I brought a full kit E350XL overseas with me.
The roads here are terrible but the super strong frame on the E350 along with the clearance and the V8 get me through just about anything.
And everybody wants my E350 when I leave.
On another note, Toyota’s Hilux is the vehicle of choice for terrorists, muj and Taliban from all over.
We call them “tacticals” and there is nothing like watching a Toyota Hilux tool across the plain with a .50 cal Dishka mounted in the bed trying to fire and hit targets.
Rat Patrol!
Not at six bucks a gallon, no thank you.
They used to be called "technicals."
Also older trucks in good shape,
Sold a 1968 Dodge pick up to a guy that was exporting trucks to Switzerland.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
As in my mind is getting old. The term was “technicals”, I just hadn’t thought about them in ten years and did not remember.
Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa
I remember when there was Rat Patrol collector cards. You can see all the old episodes on YouTube
yuck I hate pickups and I hate being behind pickups and I hate the way the drivers tool along at 50 and I hate how much gas they use
Rat Patrol lunchbox. Imagine if your child took one of these to school in today’s world!
Not many (any?0 mid sized pickups in the US market, though. You can’t get a Hilux, an Amarok, a Ranger here.
I just looked, Ford will have a 2019 Ranger.
I always thought The Rat Patrol was nuts to take on tanks with just MGs on Jeeps.
And the same thing that killed off the station wagon (another handy vehicle) government regulations.
Yesterday I bought a load of books and really wished I had brought the pick-em up before it was over. Driving one of those "smart" roller skates would have required at least four trips.
My super cab f150 is bigger than most vehicles on the road. It has all the bells and whistles they do. It pulls my pontoon boat, my trailer, it helped my son move last week, it carries hay and straw and mulch, it holds 6 people, and it will probably get 300k miles on it before it dies.
Uses a lot of gas if 18 mpg is bad, but that’s cheap considering how useful it is.
This would seem to be a luxury market in Europe. Those who actually have to fear high fuel prices shouldn’t be in the luxury market.
I spent the weekend moving the spouse’s vast book collection to the new pad we’re moving into soon.
4 5x8 or so trailer loads of boxes of backbreaking books.
Without the trailer, I hate to think how many runs in the Tacoma that would be.
Books are held in the same light as printers, phones,fax machines, lotus notes, state fairs, sports in general, and liberals.
In the original Top Gear show they tried everything short of a crusher to stop a Hilux from running. It kept starting and driving. Props to Toyota, tough little truck.
That which is written in those books cannot be altered for political reasons.
Yea - just wait until start driving around with gun rack and confederate flag .......
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