Pickup truck

A pickup truck or pickup is a light or medium duty truck that has an enclosed cabin, and a back end made up of a cargo bed that is enclosed by three low walls with no roof (this cargo bed back end sometimes consists of a tailgate and removable covering). In Australia and New Zealand, both pickups and coupé utilities are called utes, short for utility vehicle. In South Africa, people of all language groups often use the term bakkie, a diminutive of Afrikaans: bak, meaning bowl or container, referring to the truck bed.

Once a work or farming tool with few creature comforts, in the 1950s, American consumers began purchasing pickups for lifestyle reasons, and by the 1990s, less than 15 percent of owners reported use in work as the pickup truck's primary purpose. In North America, the pickup is mostly used as a passenger car and accounts for about 18% of total vehicles sold in the United States. Full-sized pickups and SUVs are an important source of revenue for major car manufacturers such as Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis, accounting for more than two-thirds of their global pre-tax earnings, though they make up just 16% of North American vehicle production. These vehicles have a high profit margin and a high price tag; in 2018, Kelley Blue Book cited an average cost (including optional features) of US$47,174 for a new Ford F-150.

The term pickup is of unknown origin. It was used by Studebaker in 1913. By the 1930s, it had become the standard term in certain markets for a light-duty truck.