Keeping Light-Truck Models Fresh Has Become Crucial to the Success of Many Manufacturers

With light-truck sales accounting for more than half of the U.S. market, auto makers are finding they now must do with trucks what they’ve been doing all along with passenger cars: update them constantly.

And when General Motors Corp., Dodge and Toyota Motor Corp. unveiled a trio of new pickup truck models at the Chicago auto show this month, it underscored the established players’ need to keep things fresh as new competition looms.

“In pickups, you never used to see mid-cycle enhancements; they’d be on the market for a decade or more” relatively unchanged, GM spokesman Brian Akre said. “But as you have more and more new entries and customers, design and fashion play a bigger role.”

Over the last decade, full-size pickups have evolved from commercial-use products to personal products. People who choose a truck as their everyday transportation “want something that has a fair amount of fresh image as well as luxury features,” said George Peterson, president of consulting firm AutoPacific Inc. in Tustin.

That means more intense competition as auto manufacturers seek to grab consumers’ attention--and their money--with high-profit, full-size pickups.

Japanese auto companies are investing heavily in developing pickups--once exclusively the domain of U.S. brands--and one, the Toyota Tundra, has taken a chunk out of the Americans’ market share.

With Toyota already in the game, Nissan is next up. It is planning a full-size pickup truck and an SUV to be built at a plant under construction in Mississippi. Honda has just opened an Alabama plant to build large minivans and SUVs that also could produce full-size pickups, a move the company is contemplating.

Ford has updated its F-series pickup--the country’s best-selling vehicle of any type--several times since the model was introduced in 1996. After launching with a standard cab and an extended “supercab” with a third door for rear access, Ford has come out with a heavy-duty model, a four-door supercab, and a “super crew cab” with four standard-size doors.

Auto makers need many versions of their pickups because they have become a family car in many households, said George Pipas, Ford’s director of sales analysis.

Ford showed nothing new in Chicago, but it is deep into an F-Series redesign expected to cost as much as $1.5 billion.

GM showed 2003 model Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra pickup trucks at the Chicago show that sported new headlights, taillights and grilles as well as a few interior updates, including a front passenger sensor that deactivates the air bag when a child or small adult is in the seat.

Chrysler Group’s Dodge division showed off the new Ram Heavy Duty 2500 and 3500 pickup trucks that sport the tougher “big rig” styling of the light-duty 2002 Ram 1500.

Dodge’s engines for the heavy-duty models are a redesigned Cummins turbo diesel with 203 horsepower and a massive 555 foot-pounds of torque, and a 5.7-liter Hemi Magnum V-8 that puts out 345 horsepower.

Toyota said it will begin building a sporty Tundra Stepside pickup truck in August. The truck has a step built into the side of the load bed, flared rear fenders, redesigned taillights and a new front end.

All this is meant to keep attention on the players already in the truck market and facing a fresh influx of competition.

Although the Japanese may be late to the party, they’re spending a lot to win truck customers, “and we don’t take the challenge lightly,” GM’s Akre said.

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Terril Yue Jones covers the auto industry from Detroit. He can be reached at t.jones@latimes.com.