Living in a world where inflation has become a part of our everyday vocabulary, it’s still pretty jarring to see the asking prices of new vehicles.
The good folks from Cars.com have shared that $60,000 is the average price of 2025 models, with a Chevrolet Silverado starting at $45,300 and going up to $73,100. And at current interest rates, the monthly payment on those rides is equivalent to a late-’80s mortgage payment for the average American.
It’s enough to make you pine for the good old Reagan-era days when a company like Nissan could introduce a bare-bones pickup truck to the U.S. market that sold for roughly $3,000, or $9,700 in today’s dollars.
A ‘basic, affordable’ Nissan truck
We can see that kind of economy up close thanks to a new TikTok clip from the folks at Boulder-based TFL Studios (@tflstudios). In the clip that’s been viewed more than 583,000 times, we see and hear how no-frills the 1984 model was.
It’s one of those situations where, unlike the feature-loaded models offered on today’s vehicles, its more effective to list the seemingly standard must-have features that the Japanese automaker thought were too luxe for cost-conscious American motorists.
It had:
- No passenger side mirror
- driver-side mirror has to be installed manually
- fake wood dashboard inlays
- Manual crank windows
- No air conditioning
- No radio
- No bumper
Why are trucks so expensive today?
For comparison, the lowest-priced new trucks in the 2025 model year are the Ford Maverick and Hyundai Santa Cruz, which command from $26,000 to $29,000. For three times the equivalent cost of the 40-year-old Nissan, current buyers get standard features like power windows, dual USB ports, rearview camera and parking guidance, remote start. Most of those probably seemed like space-age innovations in 1984, but now they’re basic table stakes for standard-model mass market vehicles.
In something of a sibling video that TFL co-founder shared with the Daily Dot, he live narrates some of the more eye-popping characteristics of the truck that he touts as being the first ever built by Nissan in the U.S.
“The dashboard is perfect. The fake wood came from the finest fake trees yesterday. This truck is so basic, it doesn’t even have a passenger mirror. The driver one has never been installed,” he said.
“The craziest part about this truck is they were so basic, they didn’t even come with the rear bumper. That’s right. Just exposed sheet metal. How crazy is that?”
Bring back bare-bones!
Commenters on the clip, who were pretty universal in pining for lower car and truck payments if not giving up modern features, were heavily critical of today’s automotive offerings.
“They don’t make’ em anymore because they last too long. And a person can work on them theirselves,” one speculated.
Another showered praise on long-gone engine technology, or lack thereof. They wrote, “I’m starting to really love carburetors again. They have their flaws but damn (they) are cheap and easy to work on.”
And another chalks the bigger-is-better approach to today’s trucks as being an answer to more demanding standards for fuel economy, saying, “We’ll never get them back with cafe standards. Fuel economy is linked to wheel base size. Large vehicles are exempted from very aggressive fuel economy rating, so manufacturers make those.”
@tflstudios Replying to @Lenzie Summers the never sold 1980’s nissan truck! #nissan #truck #trucksoftiktok ♬ original sound – TFLstudios
The Daily Dot reached out to Nissan via email for comment.
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