this post was submitted on 15 Dec 2023
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Fuck Cars

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Hey, German here. What the f*** are Americans doing at the other side of the Atlantic? Some of you already know this monstrosity. I did'nt. This is a Ford F650 Truck and when I stepped out of my Youtube Bubble I realized, it was marketed as the "biggest, baddest Truck on the road" for the everyday American. Are you guys serious?! Is the end goal really to drive a Monster Truck to McDs to get a McFlurry? Americas bloodiest wars have been fought in the middle east to secure oil, bombing nations to rubble. And all, for this bullshit? The excess, waste and decadence is mind boggling to me and people on Reddit seriously justifying this by "you know dude I'm 6,4ft. I don't fit in any other vehicle" makes me go up the wall.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 18 points 11 months ago (3 children)

If you hate the stock model you're going to hate this

[–] [email protected] 15 points 11 months ago

Siri, show me pictures of fragile masculinity!

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Most people in these comments act like we just have car lots full of trucks just like this ready to be sold to the regular consumer. Just a couple searches on the internet or simply reading other comments in this thread will tell you that we don’t. To get something like this you’re paying well over $100,000 and you would have to specifically ask to have this set up. That’s if they even do it at a factory. This could very well be aftermarket. Trucks this size are meant for commercial use and are purchased with just the cab and open frame. After the purchase they would be delivered to whatever facility needed to outfit it for its specific purpose whether it’s a tow truck, electric service, waste management. Etc. Just because 1 douchebag decided to kit one these out as an oversized pickup and some YouTuber decides to market like “biggest and baddest” is a good thing doesn’t mean that everyone here is doing it. Like calm down. Most of us don’t like it either.

Look at it this way. Technically this isn’t the biggest and baddest for any everyday citizen of any nation. You could have a semi with a sleeper cab. Something like that would be massive for the everyday person, and for everyday use it wouldn’t be bad, it would be horrendous!

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago

Yeah this thread is a bit silly.

I hate oversized US wank tanks, but anyone can see just from the cover image that this isn't a factory product. As you said, it's sold as the cab & chassis. The tub and lift (and a bunch of other things) are custom.

That said, I completely agree that the US has lost it's fucking mind, but if we're going to make that assertion lets build it on something real.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 11 months ago (4 children)

I’m 6’8” and I drive a Honda accord. I’m fat too. No excuse man

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 11 months ago (4 children)

I live in a rural state and I have never seen this truck in the wild. It must be extremely niche.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I live in Texas, the mecca for truck addiction. I have never seen this F650 outside of YouTube.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 11 months ago

I may have seen millions of trucks in America. Never seen this or heard of it. You could have said a similar thing about the normal size (huge) trucks we have. But you trivialized the issue but complaining about a thing that is not even really a thing

[–] [email protected] 14 points 11 months ago (1 children)

My 6'5" friend drives a normal human sized car just fine.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 11 months ago (2 children)

The Ford F650 is part of a platform that, as you can see, is heavy-duty enough that you can put a proper dump bed on the back. It can be built many different ways, and the way that Ford will sell the vast majority of these trucks is that it will sell a cab and empty frame to another company, who will then build something else around it, some sort of heavy-duty thing that will see quite a lot of professional use, probably off-road more often than not. The massive ground clearance will look a lot more appropriate when this truck ends up where it belongs.

These things end up with buckets on the back, and used for powerline maintenance, or the entire back end becomes a steel locker for a bunch of welding and fabrication equipment. Once it is specced out properly, the size of it will make sense.

This model of truck is large and serious enough to also come with a proper, grown up diesel engine comparable to other heavy equipment engines in both weight and general durability. That it is the true purpose of the Ford F650, it is big and heavy enough to accept a respectable diesel engine for a proper dump truck, not the little baby diesels in the F150s, but one that is probably not available in anything smaller, a diesel that will actually last for 1 million km if maintained. It won't even be a Ford engine, it will probably be a Cummins or another brand common in American heavy equipment, not passenger cars.

I am not trying to flex when I say this thing isn't a toy. The transmission for it probably isn't available in any other Ford pickup. They're too small. Most of them will not spend a lot of time in the commuter lane, they'll be on job sites all day. Even Americans don't really drive the truck in the picture. The thing is in a class by itself.

Ford may as well sell a civilian version in case any Texas oil boys want the biggest truck on the block, but that just means adding a pickup truck bed to it, which goes with the rest of the cab in front. It certainly looks ridiculous. But somebody will want it to pull a really long horse trailer, so the bed back there is just a place to install a fifth wheel, the attachment point for a goose neck trailer. The owner will probably be somebody with a successful contracting business, somebody who can justify this thing as a proper business expense, since their other vehicle will say Caterpillar on it somewhere and has to also be towed on a trailer from job site to job site.

That is what the Ford F650 is for, and can do, it tows other heavy equipment around on public roads. It looks a lot less ridiculous with a skid loader and heavy trailer behind it. Park it next to a piece of proper construction equipment and it looks like a baby toy. It is small by heavy equipment standards, so that makes it maneuverable on construction sites.

The size of the current F150, the truck meant for average office workers to buy, that is the problem. It is unreasonable and no longer even fit for its original utility purpose. The modern F150 is too big, too expensive, and too cushy to be a farm truck, or a work truck on a job site. It is extremely common, overtall, and perfect for killing pedestrians.

The size of this thing, the F650, is not actually an issue. It is huge for defensible reasons, and it just looks crazy when you try to spec it out for civilian pickup use, because that's fuckng crazy. It looks striking in the marketing material, for sure. We're discussing the beast right now. Victory achieved for the marketing guy who insisted on offering this spec. Now even the Germans are aware of the truck.

But, oops, I can only assume that this entire "fuck cars" community is just the online version of those Just Stop Oil pricks, it's all the idea of some PR firm who want to make public transport advocacy look like a position for shitty assholes with no respect for the needs of others. So I assume you don't care about a proper explanation. I didn't realize I was here when I started typing. Too late now.

I wish Reddit would stay on Reddit, instead of growing into completely different websites like some sort of mold. But anyway, the F650 is not actually a problem.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Small pp energy. Roll Coal? No 'pole'!

(Source: I live in the Midwest of the US.)

[–] [email protected] 13 points 11 months ago

Sales numbers are hard to find, but in 2021, they expected to see about 15,000 F-650s and F-750s combined. That's worldwide sales. The 750s are mostly box trucks and dump trucks. While there may be a few pimped out like the 650 here, sold to people that are compensating for certain size problems elsewhere, the vast...vast majority of the made are for business.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (3 children)

Lol, I'm 6'4" and I drive an old Japanese import, comfortably. It's an 89 supra, so it's not as good on gas as it could be. But certainly better than many other options. But I just love it. Hard to part with it.

And also literally every other vehicle I have gotten into was at least viable if not also comfortable, except for one, I tried to sit in a miata. I can safely say those are not intended for people my size. But I'm not particularly overweight. Certainly could be in better shape than I am, but most people who look at me would assume I weigh significantly less, just because height adds more weight than morst people account for. I don't know if being overweight would make a big difference in which cars are comfortable for my height. The only way I can really see it is if it cuts more into leg room.

Either way, it's definitely not "hard to find" cars a person my size can fit into.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago

Looks like Tango & Cashs car.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago

American here. Never heard of this nor seen one.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago (1 children)

What they forget to tell you is they are 6"4 in circumference... so yeah, they don't fit in just anywhere :) Also: need space for their self defense bazooka.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

If it's any encouragement I've never actually seen one of these on the road and it is absolutely inaccessible to 99% of Americans.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago (3 children)

I mean... f*ck cars for sure, but exotic specialty work vehicles like this are not really the problem. This is a $150000 truck; nobody is buying this to impress the neighbors. They're buying it to haul trailers and stuff.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago

Its literally the fucking compensator from saints row the third.

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