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> The Ford Ranger (2020). One of the most popular pickups in the US. A key selling point is that the cabin is so high you can run over toddlers without even not

> The Ford Ranger (2020). One of the most popular pickups in the US. A key selling point is that the cabin is so high you can run over toddlers without even noticing. The craziest thing about this criticism is that it is phrased as hyperbole but the reality is that this is seen as a small truck in the US. The Ford Ranger actually is the best selling pickup truck in Europe for 10 straight years, but doesn’t sell as much in the US. The larger F series trucks sell more than an order of magnitude more in the US.

tanjtanjtanj 10mo ago
The best part about the F-150 is that it isn't even toddlers at that point. The most common F-150 variant I see in my area's hood goes up to my shoulder and I'm 2 meters tall. You often see the very important people driving these working their way through crowded parking lots and places that are primarily foot traffic with a "Wtach out for ME!" driving style.
- rconti 10mo ago
  Yep, the hoods are higher than my wife's head.
  - OptionOfT 10mo ago
    My wife: 5'5": https://imgur.com/a/CVFDb0D https://imgur.com/a/CVFDb0D Not to mention the amount of stones they kick up. In AZ if your truck has a suspension lift, you're supposed to have mudflaps. But that law (and many other vehicle laws) is not enforced.
    - Rendello 10mo ago
      Being from rural Canada, I prefer the truck and snowmobile sizes of the 90s (but not their emissions, it's hard to breath when they drive by). All the options are so big now. Also, you may be married to Medjed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medjed#/media/File:Medjed.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medjed#/media/File:Medjed.svg
      - OptionOfT 10mo ago
        I am not married to an Egyptian deity! But never the less, she's amazing. Since you're from Canada, what do you think about this one: https://imgur.com/a/0pxeXVF https://imgur.com/a/0pxeXVF Same wife (maybe even same shoes?) / Egyptian deity.
        Rendello 10mo ago
        > I am not married to an Egyptian deity! I'm sure you know her better than me, but I'm not convinced it's not a Clark Kent-esque disguise. He takes his glasses off and he's obviously Superman, have you ever seen her in heavy Egyptian eyeliner? It might clear things up. Also, if she ever smites things by "shooting with her eyes", that's a pretty good tell. As for that vehicle, it strikes awe and fear into me. Like it wants to eat me. A less threatening but equally whimsical vehicle is the Bombardier B12 from the 40s: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/1949-Bombardier-B12.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/1949-Bom...
    - tanjtanjtanj 10mo ago
      I see SO many illegally modified trucks and I've never seen or heard of someone getting in trouble or failing inspection for them. It boggles my mind every time I see a car with tires extending half a foot on either side of the cabin veering here and there, making their presence everyone else's problem.
      - kube-system 10mo ago
        The vast majority of US states do not require safety inspections.
        tanjtanjtanj 10mo ago
        Mine did until recently, which is the only state relevant to my comment.
- tavavex 10mo ago
  It's so funny that when people design vehicles that actually have a need to be big - big buses, commercial vans, fire trucks - one of their common features is that visibility is treated as something important, and often these types of vehicles have either a nearly flat, uniform front side, or they try to minimize the engine compartment hump as much as possible and make the windshield huge. But when we talk about cars that are made for the consumer, all sanity goes out the window, we get these near-caricatures that would be hilarious if they weren't real. The craziness can only be somewhat tamed by government restrictions, depending on where you live, but the peak of this design results in huge, elevated flat boxes for engine compartments, mounted as high as possible. It doesn't matter that the driver has a blind spot in every direction, what matters is showing off how HUGE your 18L V32 engine must surely be under that hood, how powerful it must be to draw air through that chrome grille that's half a person's height, and most importantly, how much of an imposing heroic warrior one must be to own that tank.
kubb 10mo ago
I think the F-150 is the most popular. I know many people don’t care about other’s subjective experiences, but it’s always such a mindfuck to my EU mind when I see trucks of this size. Like my brain expects the car to finish, but there’s more car. Then it happens again and again in a quick succession. It confuses me, I shake it off. I look at the car again. The bed is empty, there’s one person in it. Then I think „what’s the point”? And then I remember we grew up in different environments and have different expectations about how things should look like. And I still don’t fully get it.
- hn8726 10mo ago
  From my experience, these trucks make much more sense on a road in the US. European roads are fairly small so these trucks look _even bigger_, whereas in the US everything is massive so the cars fit. Still, having to look _up_ to see the windshield is crazy and I hope it won't be normalized in the EU
  - drunner 10mo ago
    They make little sense on any road though.
- beezle 10mo ago
  The f-150 is a bit smaller than its big brothers the f-250 and f-350 dually!
- loeg 10mo ago
  Almost any large car will fit almost anywhere in the US, so you might as well get the car that serves even your most marginal use cases. Fuel costs are much lower than Europe, and Americans are relatively richer anyway.
hn8726 10mo ago
> The Ford Ranger actually sells better in Europe than it does in the US. And the larger F series trucks sell more than an order of magnitude more. Do you have any sources for this? I looked online and found a couple of charts, none of them support this claim. The Ford Ranger sales in Europe vs US are similar (who buys more varies by year) but the F series seems to be mostly bought in US
- benregenspan 10mo ago
  I think they meant it has much larger % share of pickup market in Europe vs US, not necessarily higher absolute number of sales (https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/feu/en/news/2025/02/13/ford-ranger-celebrates-10-years-as-europes-best-selling-pickup.html https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/feu/en/news/2025/02...)
  - kube-system 10mo ago
    For the most recent year numbers were published it also had better raw numbers.
  - hn8726 10mo ago
    Thank you, that makes sense. But in that case it doesn't do much for the op's argument, which seems to be that Europe _prefers massive cars_. US still has much more of obscenely big cars, and Ford F having less % pickup market share shows that there's much bigger market for these cars, if anything
  - seanmcdirmid 10mo ago
    Surely the hilux would be more popular than the ranger, but maybe Toyota just sends those to the developing world and Australia?
    - sparrish 10mo ago
      I'd love to buy a Hilux in the US but they aren't available. Drove them in South America for years and they're great vehicles.
jeron 10mo ago
I'm probably one of the few people in this thread who are actually truck shopping right now The ranger is a great option for most people but one of my capabilities for the truck is to bring my bike to motorcycle track days. Usually I'd only take a single motorcycle, however track days are more fun with friends. to fit two motorcycles in the back of the Ranger, you need to adjust the angle of the handlebars awkwardly to fit both on the bed.[0] that leaves only the bigger 1500 class trucks as options for me, and why I'm going with an F150 [0]:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmegARwXN7Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmegARwXN7Q
- k4rli 10mo ago
  Trailers do exist and there is no good reason to drive a commercial vehicle every day for simple trips. It is also less expensive to use a trailer.
  - acheron 10mo ago
    Yes, I’m sure that guy made the comment so he could get advice from HN’s top minds about how he doesn’t actually know what his requirements are.
    - dpark 10mo ago
      Clearly he made the comment to justify to strangers on the internet why he needs to buy a bigger truck. Truly the need to “adjust the angle of the handlebars awkwardly” is a great burden.
    - 4gotunameagain 10mo ago
      It is fine if one of your key requirements is to compensate for something ;) Fellow motorbike trailer owner here.
  - c22 10mo ago
    This is a great solution. I have a small utility trailer I use to move my dirtbike (and lots of other stuff!) I tow it with a CR-V. Since I don't need the hauling capacity every day, or even every week, it's great to leave the trailer at home and park in more places.
neves 10mo ago
When I see a Ford car in Geoguessr I always know I'm in USA. Just Americans but these terrible cars.
testing22321 10mo ago
My wife walked past an F350 the other day with our toddler, and the hood was above her head. My wife, that is. She’s 5’10”.
IgorPartola 10mo ago
I have a Ford F-150 (14 gen) and the front is so huge I need to step on the front grill guard to reach anything inside the engine compartment. It is all around an unreasonably sized vehicle. My excuse is that (a) I do use it for home improvement stuff and for hauling stuff around and (b) I work from home so no commute. But for most people who do not work construction this is an insane daily driver.
- Aaargh20318 10mo ago
  > I do use it for home improvement stuff and for hauling stuff around I don’t understand this argument, as they seem incredibly impractical for that. There is very little space for ‘stuff’, there is only the uncovered bed which is relatively small. The bed is also at an awkward height so very impractical to get stuff in or out. Since the bed is open, you always have to take all your ‘stuff’ out, you can’t leave tools in there or anything of value or it will get stolen. If you put a hard cover on. it leaves even less space. And since a large part of the vehicle has no roof you cannot have a roof rack. You do not see these used by people in construction or other trades here in Europe. They use vans. An (extended) van has an ungodly amount of lockable storage space, easily accessible with side and back doors, with a floor at a reasonable height and if that isn’t enough you with a roof rack you can strap a lot to the roof as well. I really don’t see how something like an F-150 is more practical for ‘hauling stuff’ than something like a Mercedes Sprinter. I did look up some numbers (used the most capable configuration I could find for each of the vehicles): Max bed length for an F-150: 247cm Max cargo space length for a Sprinter: 481cm Bed/cargo width: F-150: 126cm, Sprinter 178cm Bed/cargo height: F-150: 54cm, Sprinter: 200cm Max. payload capacity: F-150 : 1106kg, Sprinter 1477kg for the extra-long version, 2447kg for the long version.
  - bluedino 10mo ago
    You can fit a full size dresser in the rear sat compartment in the crew cab models (the most popular model)
  - IgorPartola 10mo ago
    Have you ever loaded drywall into a van? It is not fun. A truck bed is sized to load it perfectly. Strapping down lumber is also simpler. Lastly with nothing above the truck bed you can carry much taller things than in a van. It isn’t the only way but yes a truck is very practical. That’s why they are used so much in the US. The difference between the US and the EU isn’t just arbitrary either. In the US gas (sorry, petrol) is a lot cheaper, roads are bigger, wider, longer, and sometimes you need to tow a large trailer. I tower a 3 ton excavator with my truck to build my home office.
deleted 10mo ago
[deleted]
bluedino 10mo ago
The even smaller Ford Maverick sells twice as many as the Ranger

tanjtanjtanj 10mo ago

The best part about the F-150 is that it isn't even toddlers at that point. The most common F-150 variant I see in my area's hood goes up to my shoulder and I'm 2 meters tall. You often see the very important people driving these working their way through crowded parking lots and places that are primarily foot traffic with a "Wtach out for ME!" driving style.

rconti 10mo ago
Yep, the hoods are higher than my wife's head.
- OptionOfT 10mo ago
  My wife: 5'5": https://imgur.com/a/CVFDb0D https://imgur.com/a/CVFDb0D Not to mention the amount of stones they kick up. In AZ if your truck has a suspension lift, you're supposed to have mudflaps. But that law (and many other vehicle laws) is not enforced.
  - Rendello 10mo ago
    Being from rural Canada, I prefer the truck and snowmobile sizes of the 90s (but not their emissions, it's hard to breath when they drive by). All the options are so big now. Also, you may be married to Medjed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medjed#/media/File:Medjed.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medjed#/media/File:Medjed.svg
    - OptionOfT 10mo ago
      I am not married to an Egyptian deity! But never the less, she's amazing. Since you're from Canada, what do you think about this one: https://imgur.com/a/0pxeXVF https://imgur.com/a/0pxeXVF Same wife (maybe even same shoes?) / Egyptian deity.
      - Rendello 10mo ago
        > I am not married to an Egyptian deity! I'm sure you know her better than me, but I'm not convinced it's not a Clark Kent-esque disguise. He takes his glasses off and he's obviously Superman, have you ever seen her in heavy Egyptian eyeliner? It might clear things up. Also, if she ever smites things by "shooting with her eyes", that's a pretty good tell. As for that vehicle, it strikes awe and fear into me. Like it wants to eat me. A less threatening but equally whimsical vehicle is the Bombardier B12 from the 40s: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/1949-Bombardier-B12.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/1949-Bom...
  - tanjtanjtanj 10mo ago
    I see SO many illegally modified trucks and I've never seen or heard of someone getting in trouble or failing inspection for them. It boggles my mind every time I see a car with tires extending half a foot on either side of the cabin veering here and there, making their presence everyone else's problem.
    - kube-system 10mo ago
      The vast majority of US states do not require safety inspections.
      - tanjtanjtanj 10mo ago
        Mine did until recently, which is the only state relevant to my comment.
tavavex 10mo ago
It's so funny that when people design vehicles that actually have a need to be big - big buses, commercial vans, fire trucks - one of their common features is that visibility is treated as something important, and often these types of vehicles have either a nearly flat, uniform front side, or they try to minimize the engine compartment hump as much as possible and make the windshield huge. But when we talk about cars that are made for the consumer, all sanity goes out the window, we get these near-caricatures that would be hilarious if they weren't real. The craziness can only be somewhat tamed by government restrictions, depending on where you live, but the peak of this design results in huge, elevated flat boxes for engine compartments, mounted as high as possible. It doesn't matter that the driver has a blind spot in every direction, what matters is showing off how HUGE your 18L V32 engine must surely be under that hood, how powerful it must be to draw air through that chrome grille that's half a person's height, and most importantly, how much of an imposing heroic warrior one must be to own that tank.

kubb 10mo ago

I think the F-150 is the most popular. I know many people don’t care about other’s subjective experiences, but it’s always such a mindfuck to my EU mind when I see trucks of this size. Like my brain expects the car to finish, but there’s more car. Then it happens again and again in a quick succession. It confuses me, I shake it off. I look at the car again. The bed is empty, there’s one person in it. Then I think „what’s the point”? And then I remember we grew up in different environments and have different expectations about how things should look like. And I still don’t fully get it.

hn8726 10mo ago
From my experience, these trucks make much more sense on a road in the US. European roads are fairly small so these trucks look _even bigger_, whereas in the US everything is massive so the cars fit. Still, having to look _up_ to see the windshield is crazy and I hope it won't be normalized in the EU
- drunner 10mo ago
  They make little sense on any road though.
beezle 10mo ago
The f-150 is a bit smaller than its big brothers the f-250 and f-350 dually!
loeg 10mo ago
Almost any large car will fit almost anywhere in the US, so you might as well get the car that serves even your most marginal use cases. Fuel costs are much lower than Europe, and Americans are relatively richer anyway.

hn8726 10mo ago

> The Ford Ranger actually sells better in Europe than it does in the US. And the larger F series trucks sell more than an order of magnitude more. Do you have any sources for this? I looked online and found a couple of charts, none of them support this claim. The Ford Ranger sales in Europe vs US are similar (who buys more varies by year) but the F series seems to be mostly bought in US

benregenspan 10mo ago
I think they meant it has much larger % share of pickup market in Europe vs US, not necessarily higher absolute number of sales (https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/feu/en/news/2025/02/13/ford-ranger-celebrates-10-years-as-europes-best-selling-pickup.html https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/feu/en/news/2025/02...)
- kube-system 10mo ago
  For the most recent year numbers were published it also had better raw numbers.
- hn8726 10mo ago
  Thank you, that makes sense. But in that case it doesn't do much for the op's argument, which seems to be that Europe _prefers massive cars_. US still has much more of obscenely big cars, and Ford F having less % pickup market share shows that there's much bigger market for these cars, if anything
- seanmcdirmid 10mo ago
  Surely the hilux would be more popular than the ranger, but maybe Toyota just sends those to the developing world and Australia?
  - sparrish 10mo ago
    I'd love to buy a Hilux in the US but they aren't available. Drove them in South America for years and they're great vehicles.

jeron 10mo ago

I'm probably one of the few people in this thread who are actually truck shopping right now The ranger is a great option for most people but one of my capabilities for the truck is to bring my bike to motorcycle track days. Usually I'd only take a single motorcycle, however track days are more fun with friends. to fit two motorcycles in the back of the Ranger, you need to adjust the angle of the handlebars awkwardly to fit both on the bed.[0] that leaves only the bigger 1500 class trucks as options for me, and why I'm going with an F150 [0]:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmegARwXN7Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmegARwXN7Q

k4rli 10mo ago
Trailers do exist and there is no good reason to drive a commercial vehicle every day for simple trips. It is also less expensive to use a trailer.
- acheron 10mo ago
  Yes, I’m sure that guy made the comment so he could get advice from HN’s top minds about how he doesn’t actually know what his requirements are.
  - dpark 10mo ago
    Clearly he made the comment to justify to strangers on the internet why he needs to buy a bigger truck. Truly the need to “adjust the angle of the handlebars awkwardly” is a great burden.
  - 4gotunameagain 10mo ago
    It is fine if one of your key requirements is to compensate for something ;) Fellow motorbike trailer owner here.
- c22 10mo ago
  This is a great solution. I have a small utility trailer I use to move my dirtbike (and lots of other stuff!) I tow it with a CR-V. Since I don't need the hauling capacity every day, or even every week, it's great to leave the trailer at home and park in more places.

neves 10mo ago

When I see a Ford car in Geoguessr I always know I'm in USA. Just Americans but these terrible cars.

testing22321 10mo ago

My wife walked past an F350 the other day with our toddler, and the hood was above her head. My wife, that is. She’s 5’10”.

IgorPartola 10mo ago

I have a Ford F-150 (14 gen) and the front is so huge I need to step on the front grill guard to reach anything inside the engine compartment. It is all around an unreasonably sized vehicle. My excuse is that (a) I do use it for home improvement stuff and for hauling stuff around and (b) I work from home so no commute. But for most people who do not work construction this is an insane daily driver.

Aaargh20318 10mo ago
> I do use it for home improvement stuff and for hauling stuff around I don’t understand this argument, as they seem incredibly impractical for that. There is very little space for ‘stuff’, there is only the uncovered bed which is relatively small. The bed is also at an awkward height so very impractical to get stuff in or out. Since the bed is open, you always have to take all your ‘stuff’ out, you can’t leave tools in there or anything of value or it will get stolen. If you put a hard cover on. it leaves even less space. And since a large part of the vehicle has no roof you cannot have a roof rack. You do not see these used by people in construction or other trades here in Europe. They use vans. An (extended) van has an ungodly amount of lockable storage space, easily accessible with side and back doors, with a floor at a reasonable height and if that isn’t enough you with a roof rack you can strap a lot to the roof as well. I really don’t see how something like an F-150 is more practical for ‘hauling stuff’ than something like a Mercedes Sprinter. I did look up some numbers (used the most capable configuration I could find for each of the vehicles): Max bed length for an F-150: 247cm Max cargo space length for a Sprinter: 481cm Bed/cargo width: F-150: 126cm, Sprinter 178cm Bed/cargo height: F-150: 54cm, Sprinter: 200cm Max. payload capacity: F-150 : 1106kg, Sprinter 1477kg for the extra-long version, 2447kg for the long version.
- bluedino 10mo ago
  You can fit a full size dresser in the rear sat compartment in the crew cab models (the most popular model)
- IgorPartola 10mo ago
  Have you ever loaded drywall into a van? It is not fun. A truck bed is sized to load it perfectly. Strapping down lumber is also simpler. Lastly with nothing above the truck bed you can carry much taller things than in a van. It isn’t the only way but yes a truck is very practical. That’s why they are used so much in the US. The difference between the US and the EU isn’t just arbitrary either. In the US gas (sorry, petrol) is a lot cheaper, roads are bigger, wider, longer, and sometimes you need to tow a large trailer. I tower a 3 ton excavator with my truck to build my home office.

deleted 10mo ago

[deleted]

bluedino 10mo ago

The even smaller Ford Maverick sells twice as many as the Ranger