The engines rev, the guitars thrum and a gruff narrator lays out why the vehicle occupying the driveway is more than just a machine. “A truck is a tool,” he says, “but a Ram – a Ram is life.”
So begins an advert for the Ram 1500, a pickup truck slightly bigger than the Panzer I tanks of Nazi Germany and almost as heavy. It is growing in popularity in Europe, with the number of Rams arriving on the continent up 20% in 2023 from the year before, according to registration data from the European Environment Agency. Road safety and environmental campaigners in the UK and Europe are aghast as the latest, most extreme cases of North American car bloat – giant pickup trucks – are increasingly crossing the Atlantic.
“Europe should ban the Ram,” said Dudley Curtis from the European Transport Safety Council. “This type of vehicle is excessively heavy, tall and powerful, making it lethal in collisions with normal-sized vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists.”
Really, I don’t get the appeal, that’s the weirdest thing about this. If this was an article about impractical and irresponsible racing cars getting popular and the objection was that they consume too much fuel, they drive too fast increasing safety risks and they only have 2 seats meaning less people moved per car, I’d lament the trend in the same way, but it’d be a story of how we tragically can’t stop ourselves from stupid but understandable excess. It’s easy to understand for example why obesity is hard to combat because at a basic level and all other nuance aside, generally, we like eating, and typically the foods that most lead to obesity are easily the most liked by people in general too.
But these fucking American truck things are bad for all the same anti social reasons as a sports car might be and more but they’re also not appealing in the slightest, they look awful, they don’t go fast and all the dubious “utility” value, even taken at its word, is such a weird thing to try to appeal to the masses with. Selling things like this to people who don’t need them used to rely on a kind of “sex appeal”, if it was a sports car your customer might never be able to actually drive it as fast as it can go but the idea that they theoretically could is sexy and it has those lines designed to feel like it goes fast, who the fuck thinks “ooh I could fit so much lumber in that thing” and gets a weak at the knees? It sounds about as exciting as selling something on fuel efficiency isn’t. Somehow though, not only Americans apparently, but like everyone wants these things? I am baffled. Did we all go to some mass brain washing event and I slept in that day? What is this?
Have you driven one? If not, try it out and you may understand the appeal.
I would never buy one myself, but their comfy as all hell to drive, it’s like driving a lazy boy. You are really high up, so other than the blind spots you feel like you can see really well. Any road bumps are essentially negligible. Curbs or other things that you might have to worry about in a small car, you can just drive right over. If you want to bring something somewhere, it’s super convenient to just toss it in the bed.
I grew up in rural farm type life, and a pickup truck was just a given.
As long as you don’t care about other people or the environment, it’s a nice vehicle.
But you’re talking about rural life, which is almost non existant in Europe. If you go to the countryside roads are small. So maybe small size pickup could make sense. But I see them all the time in city center, and they look like some kind of masculinity statement.
I guess that’s making a bit more sense. Strange though, seems like you have to experience it first to want it.