Europeans Slowly Fall Victim to Pickup Truck Fever

The Truth About Cars ^ | November 6, 2017 | Steph Willems

[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.”

[RFEngineer]

“Toyota sells the Hilux here as well, they just call it the Tacoma.”

True, but not the diesel that is sold nearly everywhere else in the world. If they ever brought a diesel tacoma to the US market, they would completely own the small truck market more than they already do.

[Charles Martel]

The astonishing thing is, why did it take Europeans this long to discover pickups?

I don't know - usually it's cost factors such as insurance that keep entire classes of vehicles from gaining popularity.

I always thought the Europeans would eventually embrace the Australian-style "Ute" variant, but even those failed to catch on. Perhaps they don't sell Astroturf there (obligatory El Camino joke). ;-)

I did notice a few years ago in France, that lots of people had small utility trailers for transporting bags of garden soil, fertilizer, and the like. The hitches there presumably tuck further up underneath the rear of the tow vehicle than is common in the U.S., and utilize a hitch ball that is more of a long, curved forging that disappears under the rear bumper.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

We’re driving a 2011 GMC 4WD extended cab Sierra. It replaced a nearly identical 2001.
Zero problems with either truck.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

LOL!

Having moved recently I do understand. I don't read much horror but I have everything else on the shelf. Happily my husband, the movie nut, is willing to put up with my books as long as I put up with his movies. I do drive him bananas with the way I read four or five books at a time though.

There is the "waiting" book that I carry to read while waiting for appointments, the "before bed" book that I use to give my brain something to dream about, the "work book" that I read at work, the "learn something new" book, the "serious fiction" book, the "author I have never read but am willing to try" book and the "pure fluff" book.

I have always wondered why Gutenberg was never named a saint.

[Charles Martel]

Yep - every company that sells a compact pickup somewhere in the world sells a diesel version, which is kept out of the U.S. by the EPA minefield. The last one to be sold here in significant numbers was the Isuzu P’up Diesel.

[Alas Babylon!]

Where’s “Here”?

[jjotto]

Not just emission standards. Imported (apart from NAFTA) pickups are still subject to a very high tariff - 25%, I think.

[yldstrk]

I absolutely adore Texas, just like SUVs and hate pickups

[yldstrk]

You need a big pickup to prove something?

[yldstrk]

my 2004 Honda Pilot holds seven and can haul all that too. It has 265,000 miles on it this minute, all put on there by yours truly. Bought the SUV new in 2003, fourteen years ago. Love it. Can’t find another vehicle as comfortable or as smooth.

[Alas Babylon!]

And trying to run down Muslim children, according to the Virginia democrats!

[Fightin Whitey]

I gotta big everything, toto.

But what about you?

What’s with all the hate this hate that mad mad mad?

Being puny and grouchy is a tough way to go.

[jjotto]

Unibody construction is a lot more comfortable than the body-on-frame construction that makes a truck.

[BitWielder1]

Victims?
If you can afford to buy and drive a pickup in Europe, you are to be congratulated.
Unlike celebrities who have a fleet of cars, one for every location, including a Tesla to show off how environmentally conscious they are, the rest of us have to pick one vehicle that can do everything.
That means SUV or Pickup.

[wbarmy]

Sorry;

Freetown, Sierra Leone.

[mad_as_he$$]

Oh agreed as a gun truck stupid choice.

[cyclotic]

Well, then you must hate freedom. It’s their choice how they spend their time and their money.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

I’d love to have a pickup, just for the ability to throw stuff in the bed when needed. But their popularity has priced me right out of the market. I’m hoping to find a nice used one someday. There will be plenty on the back end before long, that’s for sure.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Eric Braden did well.

In the Rat Patrol days, he was Hans Gudegast.

[BBB333]

Hidee hi, there, friends and neighbors!
This is your old pal, El Monte Slim, tellin’ ya’ll ta come on down here to Widetrack County in Wilmington.

God damn, we got some outasight bargains here for ya in cars— and be sure to bring the kiddies, too, cause we got free pony rides and lollipops for all the little folks.

Talk about suckers, look at this sucker over here!

Yessirree Bob, that’s a ’58 Dodge pickup, white, of course.

Gotchyer radio, gotchyer heater, gotcher overdrive, and it’s gotchyer Easy Rider rifle rack, yes sir, with room for not one, but thureee of your favorite rifles!

Yes, sir! And be sure to ask for it by license plate number KKKU2, and for the first hundred of you mothers to c’mon down, we got a free America Love it or Leave It bumper sticker.

So c’mon down and ask for El Monte Slim. And now back to our movie, The Jackson Five Story starring The Osmond Brothers.
—Cheech & Chong, 1991