What constituted a light truck 15 or 20 years ago might qualify as an ultra-light truck today. Little haulers like the '80–'86 Nissan 720 (and the Hardbody successor) seem positively featherweight compared to the Rams and Silverados of today. As the definition of light truck continues to shift, we wanted to look at the specialty parts market for some of the quintessentially American “light” trucks, the ones that gave rise to the name and category.
Maybe the embodiment of light truck, the Chevy S10 still commands an active parts market. Between April 26–May 25, S10 enthusiasts spent $330,000 on largely secondhand specialty parts, chief among them exterior goods, lighting and lamps and interior goods, according to data from Terapeak, a developer of market-focused research software that monitors online sales and auctions.
Exterior parts comprised $78,000 of total sales, the most popular products including mirrors, grilles and bumpers. Taillights, headlights, consoles and switches/controls rounded out some of the other most sought-after items.
Despite Chevy setting the pace in the light-truck category, the Ford Ranger outran it, pulling in $387,600 worth of accessory sales during the same period. Ranger enthusiasts covet the same category of goods, starting with exterior goods ($81,000 worth of grilles, mirrors, tailgates/liftgates, among others), lighting and lamps ($57,000), and $25,000 worth of interior products.
Not to be left out, the Dodge Dakota slots into second place, with its enthusiast base buying up $359,400 worth of product. Not surprisingly, exterior goods topped the list and accounted for $106,400 of total sales (again—grilles, bumpers and mirrors among the most purchased). Lighting and lamp accessories and air intake/fuel-delivery goods rounded out the top three most popular purchase categories.
Terapeak's Motors P&A Research provides sellers with access to in-depth research on the past year of online auction data and allows users to get in-depth research reports on the competition and themselves. More at www.terapeak.com/motors.