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Comment by mikewarot | Hacker News Reader

The F-150 is the lowest cost full size pickup truck Ford makes. If you can't put full sheets of plywood and 2x4s in it, it's not really a pickup truck.

  How Much Does the Ford F-150 Cost?

  The 2022 Ford F-150 starts at $29,990, which is the lowest base price in the full-size pickup truck segment. However, that's for the three-seat Regular Cab, so if you're looking for more room, take note of the Super Cab's $34,075 base price and the SuperCrew's $37,700 MSRP.

Source: https://cars.usnews.com/cars-trucks/ford/f-150

The nearest dealer to me had 17 of them ranging in price from USD$34k to USD$62k

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The 2022 Maverick has an engine literally twice more powerful than the 1962 F-100 (270 vs 135 hp). With your logic, picking on one tech detail of many, I could argue the 1962 model is "not really a pickup truck" with such a puny engine of weak towing abilities !

What this shows is that Ford merely decided to trade 18 inches of pickup box space for a second row of seat, a more powerful engine, and many other higher-end specs. Today Ford could definitely make a 1962-spec'd pickup with a weak 135 hp engine at less than $20k.

The one tech detail chosen is pretty relevant to the economic (as opposed to style) use-case here.

Being able to carry a 4x8' sheet is the difference between a productive vehicle or not for a significant chunk of the contracting tradesman market.

Sure, lots of users want trucks for other reasons where a short box does fine or a second row of seat is the winning feature regardless of box space, but the logic being applied for a full size bed requirement isn't arbitrary.

Learn to use straps, really easy to haul a 4x8' in a short bed.

Noone wants a normal bed. They want a crew cab short bed. Supply and demand.

I want a full bed. As a result when I looked I was doing so in the past. Came close to buying a VW flatbed with a tools compartment built in. Thing was from the 60s.

short bed with straps: 1] load 4x8' 2] attach straps correctly 3] tighten straps 4*] re-attach straps if incorrect

long bed: 1] load 4x8' 2] close gate

As far as 'noone wants a normal bed', citation needed.

A 1962 Ford truck would only have a single row. Without the Maverick's second row, you'd probably get a full-sized bed.

The cheapest F-100 also had a short bed, so it wasn’t a real pickup truck either. You had a pay a whole $35 extra to get the long one!

It had a bed ~2 feet longer than the 2022 Maverick.

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