Quote:
Originally Posted by special-K
I guess the extended cab has become the standard cab, too? That's like a thread a member started asking about using bigger brakes asking about backspace on his larger diameter rims. He could only find threads that used "small" wheels. You know, 15", the standard size for 1/2t trucks for eons until the truck newbie market came along. Small wheels would be less than 15" diameter and over 16" would be large.
What next? Will the LS become the standard engine? Has a 4/6 drop become standard height? Steering wheels are too big, cabs aren't big enough, long beds look out of proportion, C/10s look lifted with stock springs, 15" wheels are small, and 300hp isn't all that powerful anymore. The boys need to get their perspective straightened out, is how it looks to me.
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As I recall, 16" wheels were standard on pickups in the 1950s and later they "modernized" and went to 15" on half-tons. I used to have a pair of 16" rims with mud/snow tires that I ran on the back of my 65 stepside. They bolted right up, and were cheap and tires back then lasted more than six years.
The problem I have with 15" wheels is that you can't get ten ply tires for them. It's okay for light stuff like my Jeep but I can barely keep tires on my Suburban on the roads we have out here. The old bias ply 7.00-15 actually held up quite well back then but of course they wore out in 12K miles.
I don't have any problem with larger wheels. I have a
big problem with lower profile tires. Not everything is a damn sports car and those low sidewall tires are worthless on pickups off pavement. So heck yeah, I would be all for a 20" wheel with a 40" tire on a lifted pickup
(funny, that's about what was on my old C50)
I don't even have a problem with short (6.5') beds. I used to have one and I loved it! It was just a single cab of course because that was about all they made back then. I used it to haul my saws and fuel, etc to the woods, leaving the C50 and log trailer parked at camp along with the nice lwb K10 with a camper in case my wife needed transportation. That short stepside pickup was a great runabout in the mountains or in town and I wish I'd never sold it
It would have been so great to start my girls driving on it.
I also get that urban folks can use a four door pickup with a short bed just for misc hauling. But basically those outfits are just the replacement for the rwd four door sedans that they used to make. Look how you can just go buy a hard cover to make the bed into a trunk. The gunvermin came along and decreed "y'all need to drive smaller cars." Then the peasants revolted and said "hell, no - we're going to drive Subdivisions and Exploreditions and humongous four door sedans with token beds that can be called
pickups!"
Now just
try to find a pickup, new or used, with a single cab and long bed
One trouble with all these sedan pickups is that after they're ten years old and not so nice and new anymore, what are you going to do with them ??? A
standard 8' bed pickup will
always be a pickup, useful and desirable as long as it is still running no matter how beat up it gets. Park it in the side yard and haul trash on the weekend, or use it out on the ranch. But what do you do with a not-quite-a-pickup when the wife won't drive it anymore?