PICKUP OWNERS ARE HITCHED TO AN EXTRA LOAD: HIGH GAS PRICES

Some who need big trucks for work cringe at cost; others may downsize

That silver Dodge Ram Warlock with the 5.7-liter V-8 Hemi engine must have looked pretty sweet when gasoline prices hovered around $4 a gallon. Now, with gasoline near $6 a gallon at some stations, a bit of sour’s been added to the mix.

Record-high gasoline and diesel prices are combusting driver budgets across the land, small car or large. But filling up a pickup truck or truck-size SUV burns hottest, given the extra weight and lower gas mileage that come as a trade-off for utility and size.

Like many, George Moreno uses his pickup for work. The downtown Los Angeles resident runs a warehousing and logistics company. Heavy-duty trucks do most of the work, but he often uses his Ford F-150 for smaller runs. Fuel costs “are so important to us, definitely,” Moreno, 52, said outside the Home Depot in Cypress Park. It’s hard “to keep our prices at a fair level while watching our costs go up.”

At a time of higher inf lation, gasoline prices are the most visible manifestation. With a national average of about $3.40 a gallon, the Biden administration is worried — on Tuesday, the president ordered a partial drawdown of the nation’s strategic petroleum reserve to put more oil in the market with hopes to reverse the rise in motor fuel prices.

Drivers of pickup trucks are feeling the effects more than others, and their disproportionate pain at the pump reflects major shifts in the design of what are now America’s most popular vehicles.

Back in 1960, a standard Chevy pickup weighed 3,535 pounds. Today, the equivalent Chevy Silverado weighs 4,257 pounds, up 20 percent.

Opt for the Silverado LT Trail Boss, with the crew cab and heavier engine and other options, and the scale rises to 5,155 pounds, up 46 percent from the 1960 model.

The trucks are a lot taller. In 1960, the average American male stood at 5 feet 8 inches. In 2020, 5 feet 9 inches. The Chevy pickup over those years has grown from 5 feet 9 to nearly 6 feet 6. Hoods are taller, too. The hood of the F-250 Super Duty stands at 55 inches, shoulder high to many adults and taller than an aver

DAVID ZALUBOWSKI AP Last year, more pickup trucks were sold than cars in the U.S. for the first time.