The Next Great Pickup Lines

When it was time for Nissan Motor Co. to redesign its Frontier compact pickup truck, the job fell to Nissan Design International, the auto maker’s styling studio in La Jolla, to do more than just a routine make-over.

“We were trying to fix the overall impression of the truck, which was a bit meek,” says Diane Allen, an NDI stylist who served as the Frontier’s chief designer. “So we took an industrial and techno approach.”

Allen, a 40-year-old Detroit native, came up with a striking design that she says reflects two images that inspired her: a boxing glove representing power and a toolbox portraying utility. The result is the 2001 Frontier, which went on sale this month and which sports such beefy cues as large fender flares, exposed bolts and air channels under the grille.

Boxing or otherwise, the gloves are off. Auto makers are trying to craft pickup trucks--those drab, uncomplaining workhorses on four wheels--that pack a knockout punch.

General Motors Corp.’s 2002 Chevrolet Avalanche looks like it drove off the set of a “Mad Max” film. The Lincoln Blackwood, due next year from Ford Motor Co., lifts pickups to new heights of luxury, with Cadillac not far behind. And Chevy’s SSR, announced just last week for production in late 2002, combines 1950s styling with Corvette-like muscle and top-down twin seating in a package that is nothing less than a pickup truck roadster.

Pickups have long been the bedrock of the U.S. auto market, accounting for about one in five vehicles sold since 1994. The two best-selling vehicles in America for years have been Ford’s F-Series pickups and GM’s full-size entry, in its current incarnation called the Chevrolet Silverado.

Now pickups have become the latest battleground for automotive designers. In the ceaseless quest to snatch market share in an increasingly splintered market, manufacturers are offering consumers choices in cars and trucks with cargo beds as never before: standard cab, extended cab, king cab, crew cab, short bed or long bed, ranging from minimal entry-level trim to in-your-face scowls and leather-draped luxury. They can be plain and utilitarian, but recent and future offerings flaunt looks to kill.

“While many are calling for a bust in the truck boom, we’re actually beginning a new era of growth in mix improvements,” says Scott Merlis, auto analyst at Wasserstein Perella Securities in New York. “The creativity and innovation we’re seeing now in the truck market is one of the few cases in the last few decades where product innovation is really driving sales.”

The Frontier, which sells for $11,700 to $23,000, “will get heads turning and people talking about it,” says George Peterson, president of the AutoPacific consultancy in Tustin. “Clearly you won’t lose one in a parking lot.”

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And amid all the elaborate styling, pickup trucks are becoming, of all things, family vehicles.

Pickup owners have generally owned at least one sedan as well for family use, says David McKay, director of automotive analysis with consultant firm J.D. Power & Associates in Troy, Mich. But all that is changing with the comfort and flexibility that the new trucks offer, he says.

“You’ll start seeing those kinds of people saying, ‘In one vehicle I can get all that utility,’ ” says McKay, who recently completed a study of the American pickup truck market that says models will move to predominantly four-door versions to concentrate more on people than payload.

“Manufacturers are trying to get car-like qualities into their pickups,” AutoPacific’s Peterson says. “Customers want one that can be a hauler with personality but something that could be parked by a valet.”

Chevrolet’s Avalanche and SSR certainly don’t lack for personality.

The Avalanche’s engine is a 5.3-liter, 265-horsepower V-8. But most of all, its looks convey a sense of brawn, technology and a kind of style that will turn some drivers off but leave others whooping in testosterone-fueled ecstasy.

“Things like the Avalanche are where the styling battle is going to get real interesting,” says Joseph Phillippi, senior auto analyst for PaineWebber in New York. The Avalanche is expected to be positioned between the Silverado Extended Cab and the Suburban SUV, which start at $28,000 and $38,000, respectively.

The latest entry is Chevy’s SSR, for “Super Sport Roadster,” which GM Chief Executive G. Richard Wagoner announced last week. With its retractable hardtop, it’s a low-slung, open-air, two-seat pickup tentatively outfitted with a 6.0-liter V-8 engine. The SSR, Wagoner said with undisguised glee, is “the truck Chevy has to build.”

It’s not exactly a practical car, with limited passenger and cargo capacity. But with its round headlights bisected by a horizontal bar that crosses the SSR’s face, and smooth curves reminiscent of a ‘50s Chevy truck, it’s designed to invoke nostalgia and awe--and will surely become a darling of the aftermarket customizing crowd. That kind of buzz is priceless to GM, and it moved uncharacteristically quickly in approving the SSR’s production.

“There was a time at GM when we wouldn’t dream of going forward with a vehicle like this--or any vehicle--until every ‘i’ had been dotted and every ‘t’ crossed,” Wagoner said. “But look at that truck. Doesn’t it just feel right?”

That’s the real significance of the SSR: not potential for high volume or profit but the simple fact that GM has the guts to do it at all, says David Cole, director of the University of Michigan’s automotive think tank.

The SSR is “very countercultural for a company like General Motors, which tends to want to have a very solid business case before they do anything,” Cole says. “[Wagoner] ultimately did make that decision more on emotion than fact. That’s reflective of a very large change in corporate attitude.”

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Elsewhere at giant GM, the Cadillac division will follow in a couple of years with a pickup truck derivative of the Escalade SUV, alternately called the Escalade EXT or UUV for “ultimate utility vehicle.” Details are sketchy, but as with the Avalanche on which it is based, the cab is expected to have a drop-down rear wall so the back seats can be folded forward, creating a larger pickup bed.

Around that time, the somewhat less upscale GMC truck division is planning a pickup version of the Denali SUV.

At archrival Ford, a philosophy similar to that behind Chevy’s SSR has given rise to the Explorer Sport Trac, a crossover that mates an Explorer sport-utility vehicle with a pickup bed. The Sport Trac has the same 4.0-liter, 205-horsepower V-6 engine as the standard Explorer; the cargo area has a foldable, lockable cover as well as a tubular cage that extends back to increase the cargo area to 6 feet long. Price tag: $21,700 to $31,500.

Coming in at the high end is the Lincoln Blackwood, to be unveiled at the end of the month. Based on the Navigator SUV, the pickup is powered by a 5.4-liter V-8 engine and rides on 19-inch wheels. The pickup box is covered with a dark, dense wood from Central Africa called wenge, and the Blackwood is intended to be able to haul horses to the country club by day and its owners to the opera by night. Pricing has not been announced, but expect it to be a bundle.

The third-ranking among the U.S. Big 3, DaimlerChrysler, set the stage for aggressive design with its snarling 1995 full-size Dodge Ram, although it is idling for now with no announced plans for new pickup products. Nevertheless, the company has recently shown two Dodge concept pickups, the MaxxCab and Power Wagon, that could make it into production or influence future products.

Dodge bills the MaxxCab as the “world’s first passenger-priority truck,” with its car-like ride, 4.7-liter V-8 with 238 horsepower and gadgetry such as an on-board laptop docking station connected to a dashboard screen, voice-controlled Internet access and Audio Spotlight--speakers developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that direct narrow beams of sound to individual passengers. The beefy truck also wins the biggest badge award, with a Dodge Ram emblem on the grille the size of a cantaloupe.

“I’m convinced the MaxxCab will see the light of day,” PaineWebber’s Phillippi says. “There’s going to be a lot more pushing of the [pickup] styling envelope.”

Dodge’s Power Wagon concept boasts the raw might of its 1946-68 namesake, only this time with a 7.2-liter inline-6 diesel engine that generates a whopping 780 foot-pounds of torque, coupled with a burly, edgy countenance and foot-wide tires. The truck’s interior and the floor of the pickup bed are lined with maple for a gentler edge to this stocky giant.

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As all things seem to go in this industry, challenges from the imports are here, with more coming. Toyota Motor Corp.’s Tundra is the only import competitor in the full-size pickup market, but Nissan and Honda Motor Co. are known to be planning their own entries for this highly lucrative segment.

The Tundra was introduced last year to instant acclaim in a sector dominated by Americans with decades of experience. The truck, built in Indiana, comes with a 3.4-liter, 190-horsepower V-6 or a 4.7-liter, 245-horsepower V-8. A hidden storage compartment under the rear seat and an optional six-CD changer in the dashboard add to the human comforts, for a sticker price ranging from $15,000 to $28,400.

“Toyota focused with the Tundra on the personal-use market and came in with a higher-quality package out of the gate,” J.D. Power’s McKay says. “This is a very profitable area for domestics. When you start eating away at those significantly, you can give the domestics some real heartburn.”

Besides the buzz about Nissan and Honda, rumors are that BMW is working on a prototype pickup.

Even Volkswagen, maker of the New Beetle and other popular compacts, has served notice that it is considering joining the movement. The VW AAC concept, shown in January, resembles a four-passenger dune buggy with massive bumpers, macho looks and lots of brushed aluminum on the exterior. Under the hood, the four-wheel-drive “Advanced Activity Concept” is powered by a 313-horsepower diesel V-10; amid the leather-and-aluminum interior are a pop-up navigation screen and a miniature in-dash refrigerator.

In 10 years, imports will account for 15% to 20% of the full-size pickup market, up from 2% today, according to McKay’s study for J.D. Power.

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Where is the market going with such splintering of the pickup truck category?

“The winner in all this is the consumer. You get more choice, more innovation--and I don’t think they can charge more for it,” McKay says.

The ultimate guy’s four-wheel fantasy, though, may yet come from foreign shores.

Volvo of Sweden is acquiring Mack Trucks, maker of big-rig 18-wheelers, from French auto maker Renault. Whispers in Detroit say Mack’s new owner would be crazy not to consider a full-size power pickup--a Mack pickup truck--for the everyman with attitude.

Now that would be a red-blooded American dream come true.

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Terril Yue Jones is The Times’ Detroit bureau chief. He can be reached at t.jones@latimes.com.