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A pickup truck is a light truck with an open-top cargo area with fairly short rigid sides and an opening rear gate. They are known in Australia as a "ute" or "utility" (from "utility vehicle") and in Israel as a "tender". The design details of such vehicles vary significantly, and different nationalities seem to specialise in different style and size of vehicles. For instance, North American pickups come both in full-size, large, heavy vehicles with big V6 or V8 engines, and compact, smaller trucks with Inline 4 or V6 engines. In the rest of the world, only compact pickups are available. In some countries, such as Australia, car-truck hybrids are common.
Two rams on a market in the Faroe Islands and "picked up" by a pickup truck.
1 Types of pickups
1.1 Compact pickups
The compact pickup (or simply pickup, without qualifier) is the most widely spread form of pickup truck. It is built like a mini version of a two-axle heavy truck, with a frame providing structure, a conventional cab, a leaf spring suspension on the rear wheels and a small I4, I6 or V6 engine, generally using gasoline. Examples include the Toyota Tacoma, the Ford Ranger and the Nissan Frontier.
1.2 North American Full-Size pickups
A full-size pickup is a large truck suitable for hauling heavy loads and performing other functions. Most full-size trucks can carry at least 1,000 lbs in the rear bed, with some capable of twice that much. Most are front-engine and rear wheel drive with four wheel drive optional, and most use a live axleSolid axle and Panhard rod on a 2002 Mazda MPV A live-axle (also called solid-axle beam or dead-axle suspension is an automobile suspension that uses a single-piece axle to connect the front or rear wheels, side-to-side. This contrasts with an independent with leaf springA leaf spring is a simple form of spring, commonly used for the suspension in wheeled vehicles. It is also one of the oldest forms of springing, dating back to medieval times. Sometimes referred to as a semi- elliptical spring or cart spring it takes thes in the rear.
Until recently, only the big three American automakers ( FordThis article is about the Ford Motor Company . For other uses of this word, see Ford (disambiguation). The Ford Motor Company (sometimes nicknamed Ford's or FoMoCo is an automobile maker founded by Henry Ford in Highland Park, Michigan, and incorporated o, GM and Chrysler) built full-size pick-ups. However, the introduction of the ToyotaToyota Motor Corp. TMC (In Japanese: ) is an automobile manufacturer in Japan, based in Toyota, Aichi. History Origins in Toyota Automatic Loom —1936 The origins of the company are found as an automobile section of Toyoda Automatic Loom, implemented in Se Tundra and NissanNissan is a Japanese automobile maker. From 1932 to 1983, they also used the trademark Datsun''. Their head offices are in the Ginza area of Chuo-ku, Tokyo, Japan. Nissan plans to move their headquarters to Yokohama, Kanagawa by 2010; the headquarters wil Titan marked the entry of Japanese makers in the market. Both these trucks are assembled in North America. As of 2004, five pick-ups are sold as full-size in North America:
1.3 Other pickups
The two Australian-built utilities currently in production are rebodied versions of large passenger cars, as were the now out of production American Ford Ranchero and Chevrolet El Camino. Consequently, they are much lower-slung and more carlike both in appearance and performance than other pickups. Volkswagen and other European manufacturers have also introduced similar designs at one time or another, but they have not been popular and the designs were typically dropped after a few years. Currently the Subaru Baja is the only car-based pickup sold in North America.
