I’ve been paying attention to the backlash that has come from the new truck announcements over the past couple of weeks. We’ve gotten a refreshed pair of twins from GM, the F-series got some tweaks and gained a little brother in the form of the reborn Ranger, and FCA gave the Ram an all-new platform for the first time since 2009. You’d think that with the way pickup trucks sell, that everybody would be fawning over what they are seeing. Nope. Instead, the general statement is now, “they all look the same”. Which is to say, that the Ranger and the Ram look suspiciously like the Toyota Tundra, that they all have taken “body sculpting” to levels that were not needed in the name of styling, and that all full-size pickups are now freakishly huge, a problem that really started to show itself about ten years ago at least.

The thing is, though, that American pickups often look like one another with minor styling differences…generally. You aren’t going to radically change that shape. But ever since the OEMs started to give half a thought about putting any kind of style into pickup trucks (right around the early 1970s) there has been this strange feast-and-famine cycle of better and worse in design traits. Some years, there’s no question what you’re looking at is a Ford or a Dodge. Other years, you swear you could take a W-150’s fender off and use it on a C/K. Let’s stroll through the last forty-five or so years and see if you can pick up on what I’m trying to get at.

Welcome to 1973. Hints of the musclecar era flavor the trucks, but overall these are still brute workers first, secondary transportation second. GM had just put out the Rounded-Line trucks and the dentside Fords have debuted as well, and Dodge’s D/W series is only a year old. There’s some shaping going on (you can see B-body Mopar influences on the Dodge while the GMs have the squared-off look that ruled the company’s 1970s design theme) and they all can be spotted at a distance. Things like taillights and markers are majorly different to each truck. Aerodynamics be damned…that’s what horsepower is for.

Now, to 1987…

All three manufacturers have embraced the right angle. GM and Dodge are using barely-updated versions of the same truck, while Ford has heavily re-skinned the truck that debuted in 1980 in the name of aerodynamics. The grilles are different, the trim is different but overall, it seems like these three are just about even in most regards. You start to see some upscale touches in certain models, but luxurious isn’t exactly a thing yet.

Now, to the Nineties:

To be fair to GM, this was the last year for the GMT400 truck line that debuted in 1988. Crisp and clean, it still stuck with right angles, but the truck developed an identity with the split-headlight theme and the tall taillamps. Ford broke out the aerodynamic F-150 for 1997, a very bold move, but one that needed to be made after Dodge made shockwaves with the 1994 Ram pickup. Departing from the boxy truck altogether, the Ram went for a mini-semi look and dropped jaws. We are back to when you knew what brand you were looking at just from a glance. All three models sold well with crew cabs, but finding a two-door truck wasn’t a difficult tasking.

And today…

Welcome to the land of the four-door monster that costs premium luxury sedan money, where no amount of squinty-eyed headlight shaping is going to make up for the fact that these trucks have the body thickness of a 1970s medium-duty truck. Having a well-sorted four-door truck is the new normal and having a small, light car for fuel economy isn’t just strange, like using a pickup as a family car was decades ago, it’s a cause for worry for some. What do you think is the reason for this, readers? Is it a bigger-is-better mentality? Is it finding the biggest seller and tarting it up until each one sold pays a light bill? Is it truly the demand of the buyer?