I think what you’re actually observing is the counter-reaction to all cars looking like jelly beans due to aerodynamic styling driven by emissions regulations. A squared off looking car stands out in the crowd. I drive a Toyota 4Runner, which looks like an evil Japanese robot, partly for this reason (my wife hates the jellybean trend).
Nobody knows why this is, because most people live in subdivisions and not farms, where you might feasibly need giant mean trucks with flood lights. And yet the big mean, loud, bright trucks are quite popular.
But isn't that sort of an easy thing to generalize? (forgive me). It's not about need. It's about want. Everyone surrounding you has a big truck, you need one too. You buy a bigger truck than them, now it's up to everyone else to step and make theirs bigger, meaner, louder, etc. You spit coal out of your exhaust? Cool, now I spit more. Pretty simple human behaviors, unfortunately.
My unscientific guess: there was some sort of big angry truck trend that the people who style these things got stuck on, and the Maverick sells like hotcakes because it is styled for underserved "I want a little classic looking truck" market.
Doubly unscientific guess: A little electric Maverick would sell incredibly well.
Doubtful, but you'll find out soon I guess.
So, that's not all truck owners. Just thinking (anecdotally) that lots of "mean" truck owners buy them in part because of one-upping/status-seeking behaviors and wants rather than "I need to tow 12k pounds" requirements.
In my town (just outside NY City), seems like the status vehicle of choice is a 911. Buy one if you want to fit in with all your rich buddies!
Tail fins used to be a big things on cars, but no one knows why that was, because cars don't fly. /s
Perhaps try adjusting to your new location instead of blaming the locals?
And these opinions aren't about shoe style, they have consequences on the broader society, and thus are open to criticism for their societal impacts.
The more accurate reading would be that the GP thinks that it's bad, and that's why they don't like it. But even still, the comment doesn't appear to contain blame, only bewilderment.
To the extent that I have an axe to grind with the big truck owners, it's because some (not all, and not always) these big truck drivers:
- Drive aggressively in urban areas - Blast their excessive lights which is a hazard for cars in front of them - Are intentionally disruptive with their giant horns
Put more plainly - assholes seem to be drawn to such things. But I don't think they create assholes.
But for sure, where I live, there are a lot of disruptive assholes with big trucks.
And I'm sure not all big truck owners tailgate. But when I am being tailgated, it is almost always by a big truck.
So it is I think many people shape their view of these vehicles. It could be a tiny percentage of the owners or large trucks, but we remember these interactions of bright lights, a cloud of coal, loud horns, and someone tailgating an inch behind us.
Depending on where I've lived in the area, I've experienced the japanese cars more, or the BMW's more. BMW's weren't as bad when I lived in a rich town, but any flavor of SUV was really bad. If I had to pick a brand which was particularly preferred by assholes then, it would have been Lexus.
(Saying this as a former M3 owner!)
The 2022 F-150, on the other hand, has much more front-facing chrome, a much larger (and higher, and therefore dangerous to pedestrians) bumper, and much larger headlights. Some of these are probably good features! But they certainly feel more aggressive to me.
The front of the truck is sharper angled, the hood is actually forward so it appears like a shark; the grille takes up a larger percentage of the front of the truck.
The modern F150 is rounder, with a smaller percentage devoted to the grille, and has a flat front. If you size up the 1980 F150 to the same size, it would be much more aggressive looking - you can actually see this because the 1980 truck, when lifted, looks positively mean.
If you’re a pedestrian crossing in front of one of these or sharing a narrow residential street while riding your bicycle you might feel it. Last time I felt this was when I was in a shopping center parking lot and someone, parked gangster style (facing the wrong way in a no parking zone), pulled out much too quickly (it’s a frigging shopping center parking lot) in front of me on my motorcycle.
The curb weight can rival a light armored Humvee. And the grill is very high, promising to plow you under the vehicle.
Add lifters, 20+ inch rims, battering ram grill attachments, and all black trim…then you’re looking at the grim reaper of vehicular death.
Actually the profile of the current MacBook Airs when closed is less “sharp”, reducing potential velocity and penetration as you swing it around wildly while walking down the street.
This is a shame. Armor-piercing Macbooks used to be a viable option for home defense. Apple isn't the same company they used to be.
Yes, they are designed to look mean.
https://www.musclecarsandtrucks.com/2020-gmc-sierra-hd-desig...
> ‘Powerful’ and references to powerful things was a theme that the GMC exterior designer referenced multiple times to describe the exterior direction for the 2020 GMC Sierra HD.
> “I remember wanting it to make it feel very locomotive… my first week in Detroit I was driving through downtown and seeing the fist of Joe Louis, and remember thinking that’s what this truck should look like – a massive fist moving through the air.”
or this bit:
> “The front end was always the focal point. The rest of the truck is supporting what the rest of the truck is communicating… we spent a lot of time making sure that when you stand in front of this thing it looks like it’s going to come get you. It’s got that pissed-off feel, but not in a boyish way, still looking mature. It just had to have that imposing look,” explained the GM designer.
---
I don't see any fix for this arms-race besides legislative. Bigger, more dangerous vehicles are threatening to smaller, greener vehicles, and we need to be greener.
While there are EV trucks coming, those EVs require like 3X as much battery materials as a normal-sized vehicles, and even normal-sized vehicles are too large for the dominant commuting use (single-passenger). That massive battery use is a concern since supply is constrained by real-world limitations.
Also, the larger vehicles create urban planning problems -- bigger vehicles means bigger lanes and parking spots, which hurts walkability. Again, we're back to climate change concerns.
But if you've got the money, the downsides of an oversized vehicle are wholly externalized to the other road users.
I don't really see any feasible way to solve this besides legislation. At the very least, large vehicles should be punished more heavily for highway infractions because they represent a larger risk to other road-users. Speeding in a truck is intrinsically more dangerous than speeding in a car - the larger mass, poorer bumper compatibility, and larger cross-section are a risk for others on the road.
But because of the culture war issue, no mainstream politician is going to ever have an adult conversation on the subject because it will come back to "why do you hate farmers/working men/whatever you latte-sipping urban liberal elitist".
Don’t forget that “green” EVs are also extremely heavy. At 4,300 to 5,000 lbs, a Model S is squarely in the same weight class as a Ford F-150. When you get hit by a 4,500 pound vehicle, whether it looks “mean” or like a jellybean doesn’t make much difference.
But there are also the dudes who get fake testes to hang from the back of their trucks, eh?
E.g.
2023: https://www.autojakal.com/2022/04/2023-bmw-7-series.html
https://www.wapcar.my/news/bmws-big-grilles-are-the-tastes-o...
So the reality is 180 degrees opposite to what your claim is.
Or to be more precise: a current trend in automotive fashion is a larger grille, and some blogger framed that tendentiously for clicks.
This is a weird indirection to introduce: of course it’s fashionable. The observation is that it’s fashionable because aggression is itself fashionable, at least to the target market.
I used Jalopnik as a source, since they’re a well known car website. I’ll try to find additional sources; I seem to recall an interview with a Ford or Chrysler exec a handful of years ago where they said, point blank, that aggressive front designs are a key selling point to their customer base.
People in this thread keep dancing around it but I think nobody has outright said it yet. Maybe it's as simple as: aggressive, belligerent truck styling is uniquely fashionable in America because American culture is getting more and more aggressive and belligerent. Maybe I'm browsing too much r/PublicFreakout, but in the last few years, there's been a visible rise in road rage, people berating service workers, belligerent angry protesting, people trashing businesses over minor transgressions, people losing their shit on airliners, and so on. The public is turning into "that guy in the bar constantly looking for a fight." It shouldn't be surprising that trucks styled such that they look like they're about to bludgeon you are more and more fashionable. Admittedly, this is more of a political statement based on anecdotes than one that comes out of research and data, but hey, this is HN, not Nature.
EDIT: Whether this has anything to do with current car design trends is a different question though :P
It isn't just trucks. Someone posted a picture of a BMW sedan with a really big grille in this very thread. The Toyota Camrys* even has a similar design: https://www.cars.com/articles/how-the-2018-toyota-camrys-tri....
> The observation is that it’s fashionable because aggression is itself fashionable, at least to the target market.
It's just a big grille. I think the "aggression" aspect is more in the eye of the beholder (or the trolling concept).
> I seem to recall an interview with a Ford or Chrysler exec a handful of years ago where they said, point blank, that aggressive front designs are a key selling point to their customer base.
Assuming that's true, are you interpreting the word "aggressive" correctly? It has many senses besides "hostility", e.g.:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/aggressive:
> 3 : strong or emphatic in effect or intent
> aggressive colors
> aggressive flavors
The “aggressive” in the exec’s comment is my paraphrase, because I’m still looking for the original. It might have been “angry” or “violent,” for all I remember. Either way, the implication was clear: the trucks are meant to project hostility, not flamboyance.
The point is it seems to be a general trend not exclusive to pickup trucks, which some blogger tendentiously latched onto get clicks by stirring up controversy and exploiting pickup truck hate.
It sounds like you're taking personal umbrage at the fact that people don't like these pickup trucks. I think it's worth taking a step back: I don't mind pickup trucks; I'd even go as far so say that I appreciate them for their place in the US's culture and history. But that doesn't mean I can't observe a trend, one that dovetails with latent anti-environmentalism, general disdain or disregard for pedestrians and other road traffic, &c.
I don't know why you're so invested in salvaging that blogger's clickbait, against pretty compelling evidence. If it's a general trend, it makes no sense to read it as especially significant when applied to pickup trucks.
> It sounds like you're taking personal umbrage at the fact that people don't like these pickup trucks.
No, I just don't think it's a good idea to take clickbait or some random hot take as showing some kind of essential truth, especially in an area where there are biases to profitably exploit.
The Jalopnik article is indeed a random hot take. But that doesn't mean the underlying claim ("pickup trucks are designed to be visually aggressive, and are marketed to their target customer base on that basis") is factually incorrect. I'm not aware of any bias that that's exploiting, other than the general aesthetic displeasure I see at a car that looks like it hates everything outside of it.
Because European pedestrian safety requirements all but demand big bulbous front ends, it's uneconomical to design that much of a car or SUV twice and a fugly grill is the solution OEMs have deemed most effective at prettying that up. The trucks are all but forced to copy the same rough shapes because "brand identity" and "design language".
Aggressive styling and goes over the decades. You can make these cars look however you want with a little bit of black plastic and fake chrome with no impact on safety. The actual underlying shapes and dimensions that you are muddying the waters by conflating with aggression are driven by technical requirements.
American pickup truck design is overwhelmingly influenced by American market trends, since that’s where they’re being sold. And the domestic market likes aggressive designs, and does not particularly care about pedestrian safety[2].
[1]: https://www.autonews.com/sales/pickups-europeans-say-thanks-...
[2]: https://www.consumerreports.org/car-safety/the-hidden-danger...
It is, however, influenced by European regulations to the extent that American pickup makers desire a) to sell in the European market at all and b) desire to minimise re-engineering costs.
If they have any presence at all then they are subject to European regulations of one form or another.
https://www.musclecarsandtrucks.com/2020-gmc-sierra-hd-desig...
> ‘Powerful’ and references to powerful things was a theme that the GMC exterior designer referenced multiple times to describe the exterior direction for the 2020 GMC Sierra HD.
> “I remember wanting it to make it feel very locomotive… my first week in Detroit I was driving through downtown and seeing the fist of Joe Louis, and remember thinking that’s what this truck should look like – a massive fist moving through the air.”
or this bit:
> “The front end was always the focal point. The rest of the truck is supporting what the rest of the truck is communicating… we spent a lot of time making sure that when you stand in front of this thing it looks like it’s going to come get you. It’s got that pissed-off feel, but not in a boyish way, still looking mature. It just had to have that imposing look,” explained the GM designer.
For example, consider the Mazda Miata -- perhaps the most "feminine" car imaginable.
1990s: https://bringatrailer.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/1997_ma...
Now: https://cdn.drivingline.com/media/21637/drivingline-2016_maz...
For almost every single car model that has existed for more than 10 years, the old model is friendly, open, soft, "feminine." For the new one, the design language is angular, closed, hard, and "masculine." There's no way to say for certain why this is the case. In my opinion: aesthetic design of products reflects the id of the consumer. Our id has changed.
[1] https://www.scienceabc.com/nature/animals/why-do-deer-get-tr...
I think they know cars are dangerous, but they don't perceive the speed and don't do a good job of extrapolating where the car will be. And why should they, they're deer. So they just bolt across the road knowing it's dangerous when a car is coming (hence why they're bolting) but often misjudge.
I think they're pretty effective; they cut out the light beam exactly where the other car is. There might still be reflections from other surfaces though.
I think the article would have done well to also discuss America's general lack of vehicle safety inspections. There's a reason people don't drive around in lifted pickups with ridiculous wheels in Germany.
google has many studies and articles on the dangers of this but a link to get you started
https://www.consumerreports.org/car-safety/the-hidden-danger...
now those poor babies, children and vertically challenged adults will be safe as safe can be... yipeee
Slogan of the company is literally "There's no place for mercy!"
It'd be hilarious if it wasn't the governing principle of America.
I guess you could say "big mean bug," but that's because "big mean" is a separate idiom in US English for "nasty looking." But we're talking about an aggressive aesthetic, which is both separate from nastiness and purely human in origin (unlike a bug that provokes a disgust reaction in someone).
In other words: consumer ego (wanting to drive a big, mean looking truck) is an underlying pressure in the market, even if the sufficient mover for the current size explosion is emissions dodging.
[1]: https://jalopnik.com/we-need-to-talk-about-truck-design-righ...