Why do they make the grille so tall on pickups? Styling? It has to negatively affect aerodynamics. Same with visibility in front of the vehicle. Commercial trucks have big frames and huge radiators, so they just look how they have to look. I think that American car makers just style their pickups like that to make them look more like commercial trucks.
I do suspect that some of those 5, 6 and even 7 liter engines also warrant fairly beefy radiators. Like the Ford F150 is available with small engines from 3 to 5.2 liters and has a lower grille, but the super duty that has a ridiculously tall grille gets either a 6.7 liter diesel or a 6.8 or 7.3 petrol… And you know the diesel crowd likes to tune them too, so those need a lot of cooling to cope with those stupid ass coal rolling remaps (those tend to raise EGTs quite a bit, meaning your turbo runs even hotter, so now you have to cool down the charge air and engine oil even more).
The front engined Corvette had a 7 liter engine at one point. No tall radiator there even though that engine made more power than the truck one. Still, if used for towing, an oversized radiator on a pickup could be a good idea. They jut need to mount it lower and give it a wider, lower profile.
Yes, the paneling choices on modern consumer pickups definitely seek to emulate the aesthetics of a semi-trailer cab. Which is a vehicle that you need a special class of license to operate and can only legally drive on specific roads, even in the US.
Yeah, I drove one of those as my job for 5 or 6 years. Why anyone would want their personal vehicle to emulate those in any way is beyond me. They suck.
I occasionally drive large things like lorries, large vans and tractors, and I also cannot fathom why anyone would voluntarily drive something big just to get around.
Why do they make the grille so tall on pickups? Styling? It has to negatively affect aerodynamics. Same with visibility in front of the vehicle. Commercial trucks have big frames and huge radiators, so they just look how they have to look. I think that American car makers just style their pickups like that to make them look more like commercial trucks.
It makes PP more bigger.
smaller*
I do suspect that some of those 5, 6 and even 7 liter engines also warrant fairly beefy radiators. Like the Ford F150 is available with small engines from 3 to 5.2 liters and has a lower grille, but the super duty that has a ridiculously tall grille gets either a 6.7 liter diesel or a 6.8 or 7.3 petrol… And you know the diesel crowd likes to tune them too, so those need a lot of cooling to cope with those stupid ass coal rolling remaps (those tend to raise EGTs quite a bit, meaning your turbo runs even hotter, so now you have to cool down the charge air and engine oil even more).
The front engined Corvette had a 7 liter engine at one point. No tall radiator there even though that engine made more power than the truck one. Still, if used for towing, an oversized radiator on a pickup could be a good idea. They jut need to mount it lower and give it a wider, lower profile.
Yes, the paneling choices on modern consumer pickups definitely seek to emulate the aesthetics of a semi-trailer cab. Which is a vehicle that you need a special class of license to operate and can only legally drive on specific roads, even in the US.
Yeah, I drove one of those as my job for 5 or 6 years. Why anyone would want their personal vehicle to emulate those in any way is beyond me. They suck.
I occasionally drive large things like lorries, large vans and tractors, and I also cannot fathom why anyone would voluntarily drive something big just to get around.
I’m very happy with my 40 year old hatchback.
Pretty sure semis have better front vis than many modern trucks, especially GMCs.
special roads? you mean almost all roads that don’t have silly signs?
https://matt.jajkowski.com/blog/cars/y-are-trucks-so-big-now-the-surprising-role-of-cafe-standards/
Pretty sure this is a lot of it. By making them bigger all the proportions change thus a big grille for a massive truck.
The information isn’t inaccurate, but is that an AI written article? LLMs tend to use emojis like that
Could be. Was just a quick article I found to explain.
If it is I’d love to find a non slop article.