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What is the Benefit of a Wheelie Pickup?

J

JayTheCPA

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Location
Annapolis, MD
Over the past few years I noticed lifted pickups (nothing new about that) except that the front was lifted higher than the rear to give it a nose-high ride.

Any insights to benefits, or is this a group-think bling kind of thing?
 
Useless trend... Kind of like all the cars running around with tiny wheels and tires 15-20 years ago followed by giant wheels and rubber band tires. Hood bragging rights. Don't forget about the idiots now driving around with severely cambered out wheels too.
 
I was driving up the road just last week and saw one of those. A white Chevy truck sitting on the shoulder of the road in the grass, in a bad location. At first I thought it was broke down in a bad way. After I passed by, it pulled out onto the highway and hauled butt. I thought to myself what kind of useless vehicle is that, what the heck.

To me their useless, looks like a 747 that's taking off. As they say, what ever floats their boat, if they feel happy about it, so be it.
 
I agree it doesn’t look good. But I know where it comes from- off road racing. The weight of the engine is killer when landing jumps, and even repeated high speed woops. You simply have to have way more suspension travel in the front axle than in the rear.

Many of the multimillion dollar race trucks with the fiberglass bed sides and rear, 3 separate panel pieces (strictly for appearance) have been being built at a different angle and are actually much shorter in the rear of the bed than front of the bed in the last few years to give more of an appearance of being closer to normal because the manufacturer sponsors (gm, toyota, etc) want the fans to envision that can be their truck and go huy a new one.

In So Cal, Nv, Ut, Baja Mx, some of Az- There is tremendous racing circuits for off road cross country. Later this turned to arena racing basically for more profitability. Now there is places, even one in little Boulder City just over the hill from Vegas where you can pay to drive million dollar trophy trucks for fun.

While the top tier trucks with no actual bed and tubular chassis can fake the look into being almost normal, all the actual trucks that most the racers drive and all the regular guys that make their DD pickup capable of ripping across the desert at high speed have a choice to make. Go with nose high build, or end up like this picture. The younger crowd Has seen so many of the amateur level trucks running that they accept this is the look of a well built off road racing pickup.

DE410DFB-04DE-46B8-8B72-754B3108EA1F.png
 
One of the other ways the way expensive trucks are getting away from the nose high set up and having great front runners end travel is really long a arms. This pushed the front tires way wider than the doors of the truck. There are many trucks I’ve seen in person and sat inside but when you see pics of them it can’t get noticed. Here is a pic of a design that doesn’t try to hide it but show it off for what it is. Often the rear fenders get over flared just to match the front - like the rear would only need 6” offset but they go 10” to be closer to the 12”-14” wider the front fenders are.
7C4A90E6-0CC5-4D54-9E23-58ED9109C754.png
 
Will L. said:
One of the other ways the way expensive trucks are getting away from the nose high set up and having great front runners end travel is really long a arms. This pushed the front tires way wider than the doors of the truck. There are many trucks I’ve seen in person and sat inside but when you see pics of them it can’t get noticed. Here is a pic of a design that doesn’t try to hide it but show it off for what it is. Often the rear fenders get over flared just to match the front - like the rear would only need 6” offset but they go 10” to be closer to the 12”-14” wider the front fenders are.
View attachment 59049
Click to expand...
I LIKE THAT.
 
@Will L. , I agree 100 percent about the off road racing trucks, I've watched some of that racing, that's cool. Takes some pretty good driving skills to operate one of those trucks.

As far as on highway use, to me it's useless as tits on a boar hog. I know, those guys just want to be different and have a strange looking truck. Almost similar to those that lower a vehicle down til it's about dragging the asphalt and rides like a log sled.
 
I’ve been on both ends of the spectrum from low riders to off road specific. I never had a nose high one, but something to keep in mind comparing the pictures of race trucks to a regular truck too is the radiator gets moved to the back, no in fenders, and notice how tiny the front of the body is on a front shot. The full racing trucks that used to be used and had radiator out front instead of in the bed had super high front ends and were hard to see out of.
I remember driving the mint 400 coarse back in the 80’s as teenager. Did it on bike and truck. Not in the race, but pre running and afterwards doing parts cleanup. The carnage in the old days was insane! Now days much of the track is man made.

The things people come up with as “cool looking” -It’s all what the person can imagine. I still think the craziest is those guys in Japan with the insane bosozoku car makes me laugh every time I see one. But if that dude can enjoy his ride, more power to em. Don’t know what bosozoku is? Haha. waste 10 minutes on this video. I keep waiting for this to get a bigger foothold in America. First martial arts, then Sushi caught on later the weird cartoons- so it won’t surprise me...
DONT have a drink in your mouth when you start the video!
 
OMG!!! Those things sound like a flock of moths with a bad case of indigestion! How about we take up a donation and send them a few cargo containers of Tums and Mylanta :D

Loved folks who wore the cheap-o breathing masks :)
 
Will L. said:
I’ve been on both ends of the spectrum from low riders to off road specific. I never had a nose high one, but something to keep in mind comparing the pictures of race trucks to a regular truck too is the radiator gets moved to the back, no in fenders, and notice how tiny the front of the body is on a front shot. The full racing trucks that used to be used and had radiator out front instead of in the bed had super high front ends and were hard to see out of.
I remember driving the mint 400 coarse back in the 80’s as teenager. Did it on bike and truck. Not in the race, but pre running and afterwards doing parts cleanup. The carnage in the old days was insane! Now days much of the track is man made.

The things people come up with as “cool looking” -It’s all what the person can imagine. I still think the craziest is those guys in Japan with the insane bosozoku car makes me laugh every time I see one. But if that dude can enjoy his ride, more power to em. Don’t know what bosozoku is? Haha. waste 10 minutes on this video. I keep waiting for this to get a bigger foothold in America. First martial arts, then Sushi caught on later the weird cartoons- so it won’t surprise me...
DONT have a drink in your mouth when you start the video!
Click to expand...
You have to love the one at 3:05 with the yellow chicken feathers.
 
12A13550-800A-454C-83BD-63C27D6AAE21.pngYeah it’s hilarious.
Just now driving from Vegas to Boulder City (20 minutes) I saw this: not pro level like the video, but made me laugh.
 
When I was younger we called it Bulldoggin where the front was way up high like a bulldog with its chest poked out. They did it for mud trucks because it helped the weight transfer to keep the front from plowing in and getting stuck. It started with an actual practical purpose, but like diesel's rolling coal, it devolved into a trend for douchebag's pretending.
 
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