It's not holier than thou, I literally have never seen a pickup truck in my life outside of the times I've been in North America for work. I'm just trying to explain why.
But then I just read the words "A v8 van", so I don't think that I'm gonna bridge this particular cultural divide here.
Well, then you probably are just unaware that small pickups used to be incredibly common, and a lot of people still have them, which is why your arguments sound pedantic.
Similarly, there are both large and small vans. So, it does sound pretentious to act like a covered bed is so superior to an open bed. It's just preference at that point.
I mean, I responded to somebody being annoyed by only having pickup options for farm work. I merely proposed the alternative.
But it's more than just preference, considering the OP was concerned about the lack of alternatives and I have never seen a person living in a rural area who owns a US-style pickup. There's clearly a regional divide here, and from what I'm hearing from both sides none of us seem to be particularly aware of why. Beyond "American like big truck" or whatever.
Are we talking about that? Because what seems to happen up there is that the OP said they "want to purchase a ToddlerKiller4000. Short of inventing a time machine and traveling back to an era of car-sized rather than tank-sized pickups, my options are pretty slim"
And I suggested a van instead and apparently hit the secret trap card of culture clash for today, which I wasn't expecting at all. I thought we'd just joke around about how Americans like their work vehicles to look huge and rugged and maybe feel all superior for a bit about sensible white vans. I didn't think that the concept of a truck bed having a roof would be the great Atlantic rift.
In this particular thread, yes, people just explained that they didn't want manure and compressed gas cylinders in their van or whatever. I didn't think Europeans were actually going to feel all superior. But here we are.
Again, you can absolutely carry those things in a van, but if you don't want to do that you can just hitch a bed to something else. There are billions of people in territories where pickup trucks are not commonplace, I promise you we move those things around just fine.
It's not even a superiority thing, the presumably American OP said he didn't want a pickup but thought he didn't have alternatives, I mentioned vans.
It's not like anybody outside the... pickupsphere? ever felt superior about driving around in a van. I promise you there isn't a bunch of people buying Kangoos and Ford Transits as a status symbol.
I sometimes don't know how to not appear to be feeling superior when talking to Americans. If driving around on a rickety cheap van with holes on the floor now counts as a show of arrogance against people driving cars that need ladders to climb inside I don't know what level of humility is adequate here. Should I just praise baseball or something? Embrace pounds and ounces? I have a measuring tape that lists inches, if that helps.
Ya, I said I have a van in my very first comment. But that's my choice for my purposes. I'm not trying to tripple down on "why don't people select my preferred vehicle shape!?"