Good morning! Welcome to The Morning Shift, your roundup of the auto news you crave, all in one place every weekday morning. Here are the important stories you need to know.
Few things are more hilarious and satisfying than seeing a vehicle do something outside of its intended use. Take pro drifter Chelsea DeNofa’s diesel pickup truck, for example. He drifts the truck, too. I mean, why not?
It is time. We knew the luxo-truck onslaught that’s been wreaking havoc across this great nation was going to bring us to this moment. But now, it’s finally here: Ford has thrown down the gauntlet with its new “Super Duty Limited” line, whose crown jewel is an F-450 that can cost over $100,000.
Part of me sympathizes with this guy– I always wish I could take the mountain home with me after a day of skiing, too. But please don’t carry a car-size slab of snow onto the street. Even if it looks like a hilarious Pope hat on your vehicle.
For the first time ever, the Volkswagen Amarok will be available with a 3.0-liter V6 TDI producing 220 horsepower and 405 pound feet at 1,500 RPM. In Europe, of course.
Built for SEMA, this JDM 1974 Datsun Sunny 1200 pickup packs 2.2 liters of Nissan Silvia turbo and the front end of a Skyline. A job done right.
Or rather, the operators who would use the Navistar SOTV-B would want you to think there’s absolutely nothing special about it. It is the ultimate blank pick up truck for clandestine environments. And if that’s not anonymous enough for you, it can look like any truck your heart desires.
Some maniac is on the loose in London "on a quest to transform great cars into 'Ultimate Wheels,' and he's just taken an angle grinder to a 1989 Ferrari 412, begetting the first Ferrari El Camino-style pickup. It's actually much prettier than it sounds.
Ford confirmed that the exterior styling and construction materials will remain unchanged for the 2015 F-250 Super Duty, and adamantly maintained that there is no diesel F-150 on the horizon. At least, not yet.
I haven't seen a 2015 Ford F-150 story without a comment pining for a new Bronco. You know what? I wanna see it too. But Ford won't oblige, so I'm challenging you artists of Jalopnik and Truck Yeah! to design the best damn 2015 Ford Bronco you can imagine and share it in the comments.
Tesla's VP of Worldwide Sales and Service Jerome Guillen was kind enough to take questions after the least eventful press conference I've seen at the Detroit Auto Show, but he "does not know where rumors came from" about a utility or pickup from his company.
You've seen the PR photos and read the specs, now Truck Yeah! has witnessed the official unveiling of 2015 GMC Canyon. There's now finally a real alternative for those of you who wanted a smaller truck but didn't like the Tacoma or Frontier.
Bloomberg reports that military-grade aluminum is being prepared for the 2015 Ford F-150 display at the Detroit Auto Show, most likely to build association with toughness. This is yet another reminder that Ford's betting hard that people won't mind trading in their workhorse for a giant aluminum can.
With the i-MiEV flopping on the deck like an asphyxiated fish and the demise of the Gallant and Eclipse leaving a gap in Mitsubishi's Normal, IL manufacturing facility, Mitsubishi may be looking to trucks to turn their fortunes around in the US.
England's 4x4 Magazine has named the 2014 Volkswagen Amarok their "Pickup of the Year," just throwing sand in the face of us Americans who will continue to be denied access to the vehicle.
Ask yourself — what's the most apple pie, Grand Canyon, Lincoln Memorial, Bald Eagle American kind of vehicle? Yes, it's the pickup truck. So what's the best pickup truck that's not from the Land of Freedom?
Some probably stoned and fairly intrepid outdoorsmen of the boreal North watched as a grizzly bear ambled into the back of their pickup truck. They looked death in the gruesome, fuzzy face and laughed. Warning: NSFW language
Today's word of the day: "de-engineered." It's when someone uses a complicated and/or dumb fix to avoid a simple solution — like the Arizona pickup owner who cools his cab with a room-sized air conditioner duct-taped into the rear window.
Remember small(ish) pickup trucks? Remember the Toyota Tacoma? Well this is very likely the 2012 model, due in October, by way of a leaked video retrieved by PickupTrucks.com. Note the new front end, harmonizing it with the latest, fifth-generation 4Runner.
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