All I want is a small pick up...that's all I want

Good luck with that. There's only one left- the 6.7 Cummins.

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'83 300D, 126K miles.

It's coming via the Colorado/Canyon Diesel...

I'm also hoping GM finally wises up and offers the 4.5 liter Duramax in their SUVs and small trucks!

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-Justin

91 560 SEC AMG - other dogs dd
01 Honda S2000 - dogs dd
07 MB ML320 CDI - dd
16 Lexus IS250 - wifes dd

it's automatic.

The Euro "big" Ford Transit is coming to the US next year. How about mounting a pickup bed on the cutaway chassis?

Alternatively, what about a Transit-Connect-based ute?

Maybe they should dump some of the several hundred pounds of sound damping and luxury crap, let the truck be a truck, and get more economy that way?

Land Rover seems to have done OK with their aluminum bodies during the 50's and 60's and 70's. I don't know if they still build their bodes out of it or not but one of the things Land Rover fans would rave about was how their trucks held up forever and never rusted out.

Granted that a Land Rover is not normally put to the use of an F-150 here in the US, but in parts of the world where a road is little more than a goat track the Land Rover seems to have held up rather well.

I've not been a fan of the F150 since they raised the bed side height, as a nod towards pssenger vehicle and away from utility. Hard to believe that was nearly 20 years ago now

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Its probably some aluminum alloy and pretty durable.

Honestly, I'm waiting to put my money down on the first truck body built by rubbermaid. Let's see a steel or aluminum body shrug off a hit with a sledge hammer the same way a plastic trash can will. I actually managed to crack the body? No problem, where's my drill and package of zip ties.

Scratch? No problem, my dark grey matte truck is plastic pigmented, not painted, and can never ever rust

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Seems like a good idea but it'd imagine not easy to pull off. I had a big Rubbermaid cross bed tool box in my Ford. After a couple of AZ summers the lid was so warped it wouldn't close. It's a water trough now.
Didn't Saturns originally have some sort of composite body panels?

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You're a daisy if you do.
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84 Euro 240D 4spd. 220.5k sold
04 Honda Element AWD
1985 F150 XLT 4x4, 351W with 270k miles, hay hauler
1997 Suzuki Sidekick 4x4
1993 Toyota 4wd Pickup 226K and counting

Yeah but you can get over a half cord of firewood in a full size Ford bed. A chivvy won't hold but just half a cord.

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You're a daisy if you do.
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84 Euro 240D 4spd. 220.5k sold
04 Honda Element AWD
1985 F150 XLT 4x4, 351W with 270k miles, hay hauler
1997 Suzuki Sidekick 4x4
1993 Toyota 4wd Pickup 226K and counting

Why are you crapping on my dreams?

I suppose they could market the individuality of it to people.

"Dpending on the grain of the plastic flow and the sun exposure, each truck will warp in a totally unique way! Never worry about identifying your truck fom afar or it getting stolen, as after two months, every body panel will now be an individual. These timeless classics start as utility, an over time become modern art as the material changes form and dimension"

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I didnt know LR did anything well except make a beautiful piece of crap.

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1984 300SD Orient Red/ Palomino
1989 560SEC
2016 Mazda 6 6 speed manual
1995 Ford F-150 reg cab 4.9 5speed manual

Ranger or S10, TDI engine/ecu, couple hundred$ to a machine shop to adapt to a rwd manual, and a couple hundred to a shop for the motormounts. Take your time cobbling the fuel system together. It's been done, there is a guy up in Canada getting 36mpg from his 2WD TDI conversion.


As for aluminum...my truck has an aluminum hood, it's been fine. Newer cars run aluminum suspension components, and dump trucks have had aluminum beds for years. Unless you're using super a super soft grade like 20## it will be fine. The only issue I see is that aluminum doesn't like to pop back into shape after you bump it.

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$60 OM617 Blank Exhaust Flanges
$110 OM606 Blank Exhaust Flanges
No merc at the moment

It was inevitable to meet the new fuel requirements and still offer bloated fat assed behemouts that the corpulent customers se them selves in. --But there have been aluminum body panels on fords for a long time,like the hoods of expeditions. For body men having to repair stuff---its going to just be replacement,,,,,, which on ford pickups like this--are 10 times easier than chevys were from 88-06 ( I dont know what the newer kind are like to rNR on front fender stuff).
Beating a crumpled stamped aluminum fender back into submission is damn near impossible, so its just gonna be replace. A bed side replacement will most likely just be glued on with epoxy pooky in the big syringe applicator.

Looks interesting

2015 Ford F-150: What We Know