Buyers Can't Get Enough Ultra-lux Heavy Duty Trucks

America loves its trucks, perhaps to an unhealthy degree.

Domestic automakers aren’t complaining, as pickups are among the most profitable vehicles the companies can produce. Compared to cars, trucks are typically easier to manufacture, but fetch a higher price. Tack on costly options and the expensive trim levels the market seems to adore, and you’ve practically printing your own money.

Still, you might be surprised by the percentage of buyers springing for top-end variants of vehicles once loved only by construction companies, public works departments and landscapers.

Ford claims that 71 percent of buyers decided to purchase higher-end variants of its Super Duty pickup last month. General Motors and Fiat Chrysler also admit to growing consumer interest in their ultra-premium trucks.

Thanks to lower gas prices and a drastically improved economy, well-appointed trucks are becoming more popular than ever before. Ford told The Detroit Free Press that the majority of F-250 customers opted for the Lariat ($45,105) or King Ranch ($54,260) before piling on pricey optional equipment. The company anticipated a fairly even split when the new Super Duty when it was launched but Ford’s Truck Group marketing manager, Doug Scott, said executives were “pleasantly surprised” to be wrong.

Similarly, GMC saw 20 percent of its customers drive off with a Denali badges in 2015 and Ram has expanded its premium pickup trims to include the Big Horn, Laramie, Longhorn, Laramie Longhorn, and Limited — spoiling discerning buyers for choice.

“Luxury half tons will continue to sell well and make huge profits,” predicts Mark Williams, editor of PickupTrucks. He says the segment is “definitely getting hotter,” driven by improvements in safety and technology.

Large pickup sales improved 9.3 percent in November, even though industry-wide sales were down.

Premium-priced trucks were incredibly popular during the early days of the new millennium, but swelling fuel costs and the recession obliterated luxury pickup sales. Cadillac saw annual Escalade EXT sales go from 7,967 units in 2007 to 2,423 in 2009. There was also an issue with overzealous automakers trying too hard to capitalize on the luxury image — producing flash in the pan successes like the EXT and utter failures like the Lincoln Blackwood.

“I compare it to someone who wears designer clothes — but with the badge on the inside,” Duncan Aldred, vice president of the GMC brand, said in a 2015 interview with Forbes. “If you’ve got a tailor, you don’t have to go around telling people. These are people who like quality and substance rather than the label — people who believe that if you do a job, do it well. They like quality products whether they’re personal technology or music systems or vehicles, but they don’t want the ostentatious look that comes with some luxury brands. They see it as baggage. They just want the substance.”

Currently, about three-quarters of GMC crew-cab pickups sell as upscale trims costing over $40,000. Naturally, the company added a super premium “Denali Ultimate” version of the Sierra.

[Image: Ford]