We really like our station wagon. Well, in principle at least. We won't get into the details of keeping a 12 year old German car going.
It's fuel efficient. It's not big. It's a decent people mover. It has more cargo space than many SUVs that are larger. Is low enough the roof racks are easily accessible. Added a hitch, mostly for more cargo space.
I'm starting to wonder if I've done more "truck things" than many of the people with trucks in the neighbourhood at this point. If I ever need to haul more, I'll just rent a truck/van for that moment in time. I'm not going to buy one to drive to the office.
When I had a Honda Fit I hauled a TON of cargo in it. A friend borrowed it to pick up a full-sized pinball machine from the next state over. I moved half of a 5-bedroom house (except for big furniture) across town in my Fit.
You don't need a gigantic beast. A kei truck is more than adequate for the vast majority of what people use pickup trucks for.
I love when people bring up the kei truck argument. If all you do is haul mulch around town from Home Depot, by yourself, and you already have another car, sure, go for it. But pretty much nobody owns a key truck as their only car. There's little crash safety, your knees are the crumple zone, they're not designed to go on 70 mile interstate highways, you usually can't transport many people. I would feel uncomfortable transporting friends/relatives more than a few miles on low speed roads in a kei truck, because they're 25+ year old designs focused on size rather than safety.
A kei truck is a supplementary vehicle at best... so you'd still want a car, and then you have two vehicles. Lots of people don't want two vehicles when a single vehicle that covers both use cases exists.
Sure, nobody needs a gigantic beast, but for people in lots of parts of the country, the downsides to owning a larger vehicle aren't that big. Why buy a smaller pickup truck when a full size truck is just a few thousand dollars more (in a country where the average new vehicle sells for $50k), gets similar fuel economy figures, and has more room in general?
Even my old Integra had a ton of trunk space when you fold down the seats. It was almost like a small pickup truck. I think a lot of people would get by with a sedan but it seems like the seats no longer fold down on a lot of smaller cars like that.
It's fuel efficient. It's not big. It's a decent people mover. It has more cargo space than many SUVs that are larger. Is low enough the roof racks are easily accessible. Added a hitch, mostly for more cargo space.
I'm starting to wonder if I've done more "truck things" than many of the people with trucks in the neighbourhood at this point. If I ever need to haul more, I'll just rent a truck/van for that moment in time. I'm not going to buy one to drive to the office.