A truck you aren't afraid to get dirty or that you can't rip the running boards and body cladding off of if you try to take it anywhere a normal car wouldn't go.
GM still makes such a stripper with a V-6 and I see many construction companies using them. That said, the great majority of "truck" owners wouldn't consider getting their baby dirty to driving it up an over grown logging road. These things are big cashola.
I see they do but why 17" tires! I guess that is another aspect I don't understand, it wasn't long ago that 16" tires were seen on Sports cars. I think 16" wheels would make more sense on a base model, but probably because of the size of the brakes they use now they probably don't fit. I see they dropped the 4-wheel Discs on the base model, I always wondered their reason for doing that since the rear brakes do so little of the stopping the expense of Discs on the back didn't make sense.
I see why they dropped the Manual Box due to demand but really to get any decent power with automatic you pretty much have to step up to one of the V-8's.
I guess for now I will keep driving my '93 Ranger 4-Cyl 5-spd. It's slow but gets highway mileage similar to a mid-size car. The gearing of the transmission in city driving kills any decent mileage. The price to pay for it's towing ability.