(By Tom Lohnes) – The American Truck: Hauling loads and doing work for more than 100 years.
In the year 2020 however trucks are used as comfortable commuters and daily drivers, often spec’d out to the max in their half-ton form. The amount of dedicated work trucks seem to be getting smaller by the year.
Today, I will be finding the deals for a half-ton work truck from Ford, Chevy, and Ram, also Nissan and Toyota because their half-ton trucks are built specifically for the American market.
Welcome to Configurator Wars: half-on work truck edition.
We’re starting off with the base work trucks, fully stripped with a crew cab, 4-wheel-drive, and the base engine, the essentials for hauling loads and traversing construction sites all day.
Let’s begin with the Ford F-150. The aluminum-bodied truck starts at $37,710, and has a 3.3 liter naturally aspirated V6,making 290 horsepower and 265 lb.-ft of torque. Fully specced with the 3.3, the F-150 will cost you $47,365 for the layout we outlined above.
The Chevy, powered by a 4.3-liter V6 and a 6-speed automatic combination, starts at $34,795 but comes with a longer bed. Fully spec’d, the Silverado comes in at $39,545 as described above.
The Ram packing a pentastar V6 with 305 horsepower, starts at $39,140 and comes fully spec’d up at $43,000 even with respect to this conversation as outlined above.
Coming from Japan the Toyota Tundra has been around for a while now and has proven to have serious potential. Coming with a standard 5.7-liter V8, the Tundra packs 381 horsepower and starts at $36,350. The Base SR model only comes in a double cab. Fully optioned out in the work truck form I mentioned at the start of the story, the Tundra SR comes in at a heavy $49,845.
Our other Japanese contender the Nissan Titan packs a powerful 400 Horsepower 5.6 Liter V8 and starts at $41,585 and tops out at $51,500.
So, which is the best deal? On paper, it’s the Toyota but the Tundra Twerk is known thing, the design is old and when is the last time you saw one as an actual work truck?. For me? Either the Chevy or the Ford is the best bet on this one.
