Just look at the popularity of the Maverick and Santa Cruze - there is a significant demand for smaller (or dare I say, mini) trucks. Safety regulations caused

Just look at the popularity of the Maverick and Santa Cruze - there is a significant demand for smaller (or dare I say, mini) trucks. Safety regulations caused the 80's mini trucks to start to die out - yet Mazda still produces the Miata and it (thankfully!) adapted to comply with updated safety standards over the years yet keep to the same basic size and weight with only minor inflation in size/weight over the last 30 years now, so manufacturers could likely do the same with true mini trucks like the old Nissan hard body if they wanted to. But why bother? With the chicken tax limiting competition and car companies being able to make higher profit on larger, fancier vehicles why would they leave the extra profit on the table? Mahindra was going to enter the US market, but eventually backed out for a number of reasons - the chicken tax was no doubt one of many factors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax and https://carbuzz.com/news/5-amazing-trucks-the-us-can-t-have-because-of-the-chicken-tax https://carbuzz.com/news/5-amazing-trucks-the-us-can-t-have-...