YOU NEED TO SEE THIS PIC

4X4Dodger wrote:
One thing has puzzled me since I started reading this forum. There is a huge gap between what RV'ers (in general I am speaking) in the US think they can tow with a given type of truck and what the folks in Europe and Australia and South Africa feel they need to tow a trailer of the same size.

I have mentioned this before on this forum: our parents and in some cases grandparents towed long HEAVY trailers clear across this country with the average American Sedan.

If you look at the advertisements from the immediate post WWII era travel trailers they all are being shown pulled by family sedans...and that is what people used. These trailers were LONG, HEAVY (by todays standards) and their axles were much farther rearward with higher tongue weights. (with the exception of the Airstreams)

Is it possible the American RV'ing public has been sold a bill of goods by the Auto Manufacturers leading us to believe we NEED ever Larger, Heavier Duty, Trucks with ever increasing huge engines to pull the average 30 ft travel trailer?

As I posted before my Grandmother towed a 28ft travel trailer from Michigan to California with a '32 ford coupe. By all accounts she had a few flats on the trailer (not unusual for those days) but otherwise no problems. My parents towed their trailer to calif the same way. (I dont remember the car)We took vacations to the Mountains in Southern Calif with it.

All over the world people are towing much heavier loads with much "less" vehicle than we do. Any of our manufacturers could make their SUV's and "1/2 ton" pickups perfectly acceptable for towing our loads with a few spec changes.

But I think it's in their financial interest to continue to sell the big 3/4 ton $50 thousand dollar pickups instead. And so we are propagandized via all sorts of sources that this is what is REQUIRED.

I also think there is just a wee bit of "mine is bigger than yours" psychology in this whole thing on the part of a lot of men. They want the biggest, loudest, "toughest" truck out there. Just look at the Truck advertising where this is played on constantly.

Maybe the RV Mfg's have this right maybe you can do just fine with that "1/2" tonner.

Agree 100%

Take the new Colorado for example. In Europe and Austrailia a truck this size would be equipped with a heavier frame and a turbo diesel putting down 400 plus lbs ft of Tq. It's COMMON for a truck like this to pull fivers in the land down under.

For the US market GM intentionally made the frame lighter and kept payload to 1600 ish lbs.

The 1500 trucks are so large now it's not uncommon to see payloads in the sub 1,000 lb mark for some of the higher trim levels.

What I would like to see in the US is a Colorado sized crew cab truck with 2500 lbs of payload and a 250/400 turbo diesel.

These trucks would be a huge hit and would make the manufacturers a lot of money.

Thanks!

Jeremiah