Tailor-made trucks
Every contractor and crew share a common tool — a truck.
By Keith Gribbins
Look out of your office window right now and there’s probably one sitting in your parking lot. Maybe it’s a half-ton pickup truck loaded with ladders, paint and tools.
It might be a beefy, medium-duty chassis cab shuttling a crew of landscapers, the back bed outfitted with a stake body, shovels, leaf blowers and plants. In fact, one of those trucks in that lot is probably yours. Long ago, pickup trucks moved into the consumer market, along with nearly every commercial industry imaginable.
Professionals just have a natural need to transport extra people, materials and equipment. With the help of a
well-built, do-it-all truck, contractors can carry almost any cargo in their 6- or 8-ft bed, as well as transport a crew of co-workers. Utility trucks make up the backbone of almost every construction and landscape fleet today. Some use them to tow equipment such as skid steers. Some simply haul dirt and mulch. Some tow equipment, haul dirt and transport a crew. Every professional has a unique need.
“This is not by any stretch of the imagination a cookie-cutter business,” explains Phil O’Connor, Super Duty
marketing manager with Ford Motor Co. “The number of truck combinations we build is in the billions. We do that specifically because we know there is such a variety of
customer usage. If [customers] spend some time thinking about how they’re going to outfit their truck, they can order a truck that’s built specifically for their needs.”
And that’s great news because it means your perfect truck is out there. Right? Ford, Chevrolet, Toyota, Dodge, GMC, Isuzu, Nissan, Mazda — somebody can make that chore truck you’ve been dreaming about. But which one?
Brands are as numerous as model choices and options.
In 2004, in just the pickup segment (what’s considered Classes 1-3), about 2.3 million trucks were sold.
“It’s been growing every year since 1999, and it’s grown fairly substantially,” says Joe Veltri, director of Dodge Truck marketing and product planning.
And that’s just the three smallest truck segments in the industry — out of the eight in the total truck market.
Today, trucks are categorized by a Gross Vehicle Weight Rating or what’s more commonly called GVWR.
The GVWR is the maximum total vehicle weight of the truck and what it can safely carry. There are eight categories of GVWR, ranging from compact pickups (Class 1, which is 0 to 6,000 lbs of GVWR) all the way up to mammoth semis (Class 8, which is 33,001 lbs and up GVWR).
Truck Terms:
Understanding the nomenclature surrounding truck specifications will help you greatly as you shop around to buy a new vehicle. When visiting your truck specialist, drop some of the terms below and look like a pro. Note: These definitions were taken directly from the National Truck Equipment Association’s Web site. Visit them at www.ntea.com.
1. Cargo Weight Rating
The value specified by the manufacturer as the cargo-carrying capacity, in pounds, of a vehicle, exclusive of the weight of
the occupants, computed at 150 lbs times the number of
designated seating positions.
2. GAWR
Abbreviation for Gross Axle Weight Rating. The value specified by the vehicle manufacturer as the load-carrying capacity of a single axle system, as measured at the tire-ground interfaces.
3. GVWR
Abbreviation for Gross Vehicle Weight Rating. The maximum total vehicle weight, measured at the tire-ground interfaces, for which the vehicle possesses components adequately rated to safely carry. It cannot exceed the sum of all GAWRs.
4. NTEA
Abbreviation for National Truck Equipment Association Inc., the trade organization representing the truck body and
equipment industry. Established in 1964.
5. Payload
The weight of the commodity being hauled. Payload capacity is computed by subtracting the completed weight of the
vehicle (including driver and passengers) from the GVWR.
6. Platform/Flatbed
Load-carrying bed with or without removable sides. May be equipped with hydraulic cylinders to tilt and slide platform.
7. Vehicle Maximum Load on the Tire
The load on an individual tire that is determined by distribution to each axle its share of the maximum loaded vehicle weight and dividing by two.
8. Wheelbase (WB)
Horizontal dimension from the centerline of the front axle to the centerline of the rear axle on a single-rear-axle truck chassis; measured from the centerline of the front axle to the centerline mid-way between the axles on a tandem-rear-axle truck chassis. |
But even more important than GVWR to commercial
customers are the payload and towing capacities of a truck. How much can this puppy carry in its bed and how much can it tow? Luckily, when it comes to hauling compact equipment (a machine that’s typically 10,000 lbs and below), a pickup truck will suffice. You can strap a Gehl 6640 Skid Steer Loader (7,900 lbs operating weight) on a trailer and haul it with a 2006 Chevy Silverado 1500 (up to 10,400 lbs of towing capacity). That same truck still has a payload of 1,632 lbs and room for a few friends to ride along.
And if a pickup can’t do the trick, then you can always move up to the medium-duty, commercial truck segment. You could get a hefty chassis cab truck like a GMC TopKick C4500 and outfit it with a dump body to haul yards of gravel and a few skid steers. Of course, the buying formula becomes a little more complex when you move up to those big commercial trucks.
“When you get away from your typical pickup truck, it gets very complex,” says Paul Loewer, GM manager of medium-duty marketing. “You really need a salesperson who knows the commercial industry and the medium-duty industry to spec those things out for you.”
So before you even think about jumping up to the
medium-duty segment, compact equipment owners should first consider the immense market of pickup trucks. From compacts to full-size, pickups offer commercial users a wide range of great designs, celebrated brands, extra options and competitive prices.
The Pickup Party
Pickup trucks have a long and rich history in the U.S. automobile market and the American culture in general.
It started about 100 years ago when all three big U.S. automakers (Chevy, Dodge and Ford) began making
pickup trucks for the U.S. market in the first quarter of the century — from 1905 to 1925.
Ford just celebrated 100 years of service of commercial trucks. Ford’s commercial vehicle heritage began in 1905 with a converted 1905 Model C, powered by a 10-hp, two-cylinder engine. The first Chevrolet trucks went on sale in 1918, the same year that the Chevrolet Motor Co. became part of General Motors. The first Chevrolet truck was the Model 490 Light Delivery — a half-ton rated 490 pickup based on the 490 automobiles. From 1924-27, the original Dodge Brothers Co. built a 3/4-pickup offering.
Fast-forward 80 years and the pickup truck segment is enormous. Beyond the big three mentioned above, Toyota, Nissan, Isuzu, Mazda and brands like GMC are all also
making pickups for the U.S. consumer and commercial markets. These small pickups are categorized into
separate sizes — compact, mid-size and full-size pickups. When considering GVWR, all three sizes fall into the first three class categories:
Class 1 0-6,000 lbs
Class 2 6,001-10,000 lbs
Class 3 10,001-14,000 lbs
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The compact and mid-size pickups generally fall into the Class 1 category above. In fact, the terms compact and mid-size are being used almost interchangeable these days.
“What happened was that the nomenclature several years ago was compact pickup truck. You had things like a Ford Ranger and Chevy S10, which were fairly small trucks,” explains Veltri. “But if you look at that segment today with the Chevrolet Colorado, Dodge Dakota, Toyota Tacoma and Nissan Frontier — they’ve all gotten bigger.
So today the new nomenclature is mid-size truck.”
Compacts and mid-size trucks tend to sport a towing capacity of 6,000 lbs and below and a payload capacity of 1,700 lbs or below. GMC Canyons, Dodge Dakotas, Nissan Frontiers, Ford Rangers, Chevy Colorados and SSRs and Mazda B2300s through B4000s are all considered compact or mid-size pickups. These trucks range in base price from around $12,000 to $18,000, stripped-down. Add creature comforts and amenities and they can easily jump up to $25,000 to $30,000. Compacts and mid-size trucks offer more maneuverability and better gas mileage than their full-size counterparts. The trade-off, of course, comes in towing and carrying capacity.
So for many professionals in the pickup industry, full-size trucks are the most economical and
efficient option. Full-size pickups can carry both crews and equipment in comfort, whereas compact or mid-size trucks might have size and power limitations. Full-size pickups are divided into three distinct sizes — half-ton, 3/4 ton and 1 ton.
“When you get into full-sized trucks like [Dodge] Rams, [Ford]
F-Series and [Chevrolet] Silverados, there’s what they call a half-ton, which is a Chevy 1500, a 3/4 ton with our 2500, and a 1 ton, which is the 3500 designation. So we use 1500, 2500 and 3500 for Chevy. Ford uses the 150, 250 and 350 as their designators,” explains Loewer.
Most full-size trucks fall into the Class 2 GVWR category — 6,001 to 10,000 lbs of gross vehicle weight. Payloads tend to range from 1,800 to 4,300 lbs and towing capacity typically ranges from 7,000 to 19,200 lbs. Base models for full-size, half-ton trucks start around $16,000 to $23,000. Of course, a 1-ton pickup with a quad cab and dual rear wheels will start pricing around $35,000.
Dodge Rams, Chevy Silverados, GMC Sierras and Ford’s F-Series are the major full-size pickup lines on the market. Nissan came out with its first full-size, half-ton pickup called the Titan in the 2004 model year, and Toyota introduced its half-ton Tundra in 2000. All of these full-size pickups come with a growing array of options and choices — from transmissions and engines to cabs and towing packages. But before you can build your perfect pickup, you will need to take your truck apart.
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