The Power Wagon positively churns through hostile terrain, the HEMI singing a song of unembarrassed horsepower, yet the steering remains responsive even with all three differentials locked up.

Prices down, ability up? That’s the kind of deal truck guys like to hear about.

With a string of recent home-run vehicle introductions behind it, Nissan is about to attempt its toughest launch yet.  The 2004 Titan hits dealers this December, taking Nissan into full-size pickup truck territory.  How new is Nissan to the last Big-Three dominated market?  As the Titan was being shown to journalists for the first time, Nissan dealers across the country were scrambling to equip their service departments with vehicle lifts strong enough to hoist the big pickup trucks for oil changes.

Rather than trying to compete with the comprehensive, two-hundred model …

“That thang ain’t hardly worth bein’ a pickup truck, is it?” the woman at the insurance sales office said when she saw the 2003 Toyota Tacoma PreRunner’s four-door cab and stubby bed.  “You cain’t haul any lumber back there.”

She had a point.  The Tacoma Double Cab’s bed is 61.5 inches long, a full foot shorter than that of other Tacoma models and far too short to carry lumber.  No longer bed is offered, but the Tacoma isn’t about grunt work.  It’s been said that Toyota builds great “town trucks,” and …

Amid the recent fanfare of new trucks from Ford and Nissan, it’s been easy to overlook another all-new player coming into the segment; the 2004 Toyota Tundra Double Cab.  It may look like the familiar old Tundra, but significant improvements under the skin set the new Toyota apart.

It’s no secret that the Tundra has been regarded as the “small” full-size pickup.  With the competition getting tougher and bigger every year, it was time to field a response to the Tundra’s detractors.  To this end, the new crew-cab version isn’t just …

You’d be forgiven for mistaking the 2004 GMC Canyon for its larger brother the Sierra. The all-new compact pickup borrows the familiar styling of GMC’s full-size trucks. It borrows the “premium pickup” mission in life as well. The Canyon, which replaces the Sonoma in the lineup, features a more powerful engine team, a larger interior, and some features you might not expect in a relatively inexpensive truck.

Like the Chevrolet Colorado, which it’s built alongside, the Canyon is new from the ground up.  In the past, the GMC Sonoma played second …

You can’t accuse Toyota of timid marketing:  in a time where cars have percentages of American built components on the window sticker, they’ve targeted one of the most predominantly American markets in the US auto industry, and the one which probably attracts the largest percentage of “Buy American-”sympathetic buyers.  The Toyota Tundra has surprised many skeptics by entering the full-size pickup market against Ford, Chevy and Dodge…and surviving.  For 2003, Toyota’s big workhorse gains an attractive StepSide model and a slightly updated design.

In its first incarnation as the T100, Toyota’s …

The most impressive thing about the Ford Ranger is how well it measures up to its much newer competitors.  Even next to Chevrolet’s all-new Colorado, the Ranger (whose last significant redesign was over a decade ago) still feels current.  Its sixteen-year reign as best-selling compact pickup truck thus comes as no surprise.

In the face of new competitors, Ford is sticking to the formula that works.  For 2004 the Ranger gets a minor facelift and a new round of refinements to keep it in the game.  Upgrades to the Ranger’s interior …

This may be the most important new truck in Ford’s history.  The 2004 Ford F-150 faces more full-size truck competitors than ever, with Nissan’s all-new Titan due in a few months.  More importantly, the personal truck market is tremendous.  Ford’s long-time sales leadership in this segment is the source of much of the company’s profits.  With the economy staggering, Ford certainly needs that sales success to continue.

The outgoing F-150 accounts for an astounding twenty-five percent of Ford’s sales volume.  Each year, Ford builds more “Effies” than are produced by some …

Back in the 1960s, the initials “KR” meant King of the Road, as in Carroll Shelby’s high-powered Mustang GT500KR.  These days, there’s another KR roaming the freeways, but this one’s a truck, and “KR” means “King Ranch.”

Ford’s King Ranch edition, introduced on its full-size pickups in 2001, is a marketing package produced with the help of Texas’ King Ranch.  This giant ranch takes up a space approximately the size of Rhode Island in south Texas, and has been a fixture in the ranching industry for many years.  The decision to …