When I was a kid, a normal-sized American adult could open up a bed-width toolbox, look down inside of it, and easily remove a few bags of groceries before re-closing the lid -- all while standing flat-footed on the ground beside their normal-sized American truck.

Things are not that way anymore; trucks got bigger.

The top of the bed rail of an F150 Lightning is around chin height for a lot of folks: https://imgur.com/ZBOBqJc

I don’t think a F150 lightning is wider than a 1985 Silverado.

It's not the width that's a problem, but the height.

Here's a brochure for the first-year F-150 (1984): https://xr793.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/1984-Ford-F-Ser...

Have a look at some of the pictures that have people standing next to the truck.

They'd be giants if they were able to have that kind of posture next to a modern F150.

Oh, I was a smaller kid back then and I guess I wouldn’t find it very accessible either way. Also my dad was tall. Coolers fit in the back also if you want to use those instead.

Funny to see so many workarounds to avoid the obvious solution of buying a vehicle with a roof instead of playing at being a farmer or builder.

in most cases the manufacturers offer an SUV version on the same chassis.

E.g. the Hilux/Tacoma vs. it's SUV sibling the 4Runner

It's one of the reasons why Honda and Hyundai are offering trucks -- they're already making the giant SUV, so just put a flat bed on it.