Best Full-Size Pickup Truck

Turn any friendly neighborhood barbecue into a backyard wrestling match with this simple trick: declare your pickup king. Well, guess what, brother? Being the best isn't about who has the biggest Calvin and Hobbes sticker on the rear window. Full-size pickup trucks are America's best-selling vehicles, and the fight among them is closer than ever.

Trucks today can accelerate faster than sports cars like the Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 and can tow up to 7 tons with conventional towing. That's a lot of folding chairs and steel cages. The truck is the backbone of America. In 2019, pickups accounted for over 3.1 million vehicle sales in the U.S., more than the entire population of Iowa. Each of these trucks can handle classic pickup needs with ease, and if you haven't already sorted yourself into the Toyota, Nissan, Ram, Chevy, or Ford camps, we've ranked the segment's players from worst to best to help you in your search.

Ram 1500

The Ram 1500 is king of the mountain, having bested its biggest rivals from Detroit in our latest three-truck comparison test and won another 10Best Full-size Pickup award for 2021. We'd let those accolades do the heavy lifting for us in explaining why we dig the Ram, but here are a few more reasons: The available EcoDiesel V-6 engine has the most power and torque among all light-duty diesel pickups and is fuel efficient; the interior is a step or three above the competition; and it just plain drives well. Fans of the all-black Dodge Ram can carry the dark baton with a new for 2020 Night Edition, which offers all-black exterior trim along with your choice of paint. We'd suggest, um, black.

Ram 1500 TRX

The nearly 3.5-ton Ram 1500 TRX is a lot of truck, but it knows how to use it. The 702-horsepower Hellcat engine is a screamer, and despite its heft, the TRX gets to 60 mph in just 3.7 seconds, making it the quickest truck we've ever tested. Bilstein dampers underneath provide more than a foot of suspension travel, allowing its 35-inch Goodyear Wrangler ATs to droop. It's beefy too, measuring 5.9 inches wider and 3.3 inches taller than the regular Ram 1500, but inside it's just as luxurious. A 12-inch touchscreen infotainment system is standard, and a head-up display, heated and ventilated front seats, and carbon-fiber accents are available options. Many aspects of the TRX make it the greatest truck, as nothing else can cruise to, climb up, and fly over whatever's ahead of it quite like this.

Ford F-150 Raptor

Packed with a powerful 450-hp twin-turbo V-6 and an off-road-ready suspension with adaptive shocks to soak up potholes and landings off of sweet jumps, the Ford F-150 Raptor is just plain rad. But this is no one-trick brute—it's nearly everything you might never need in a truck, and it's useful. The SuperCrew is rated to tow up to 8,000 pounds so that the Raptor can haul more than just ass. Its wide fenders and large off-road tires can make navigating parking lots and narrow streets a challenge; we prefer to think of them as reminders of where the Raptor truly belongs.

Ford F-150

The Ford F-150 has been a full-size favorite for decades, and nearly 1 million F-150 pickups were sold last year. So it's little wonder why the Ford has become ubiquitous and familiar. The fourteenth-generation Ford debuted for 2021 with a new 430-hp hybrid powertrain with 570 lb-ft of torque. That's a 30-horsepower and 70 lb-ft improvement versus the non-hybrid twin-turbo 3.5-liter V-6 for those keeping track. The hybrid-powered pickup gets an EPA-estimated 24 mpg in both city and highway driving, placing it fourth overall in fuel efficiency in the segment, behind the diesel-powered Chevy Silverado and Ram 1500. The interior is also improved in terms of materials and ease of use. An optional Work Surface allows you to transform the front row into a work table. New variable-assist steering, standard on the higher-trim King Ranch model and above, is tight and direct, and even on lower trims, the ride is quiet and composed.

GMC Sierra 1500

If you can swing the new GMC Sierra 1500's price premium over its mechanically identical, Chevrolet-badged sibling (the Silverado), do so. The GMC is simply more attractive than the Chevy. We've ranked the Sierra above it because the extra money seems worth it when staring both trucks right in the eyes. Like the Silverado, the Sierra offers five engine options, three transmission options, and rear- or all-wheel drive. Although there's no high-flying off-roader like the Ram TRX or Ford F-150 Raptor, a Sierra AT4 model is available with a 2.0-inch suspension lift and other off-road equipment. Unfortunately, the pricier GMC suffers from the same unimpressive interior styling and firm ride quality as the Silverado, but the extra chrome does wonders for GM's half-ton pickup design.

Chevrolet Silverado 1500

After a full redesign, the Chevrolet Silverado 1500 doesn't feel quite as new as you'd expect. Its new body bears only a face a mother could love, the interior is mediocre, and the suspension isn't terribly refined. Those whiffs are offset by its new 6.2-liter V-8 that can deactivate up to six cylinders for fuel savings, as well as the available turbocharged 2.7-liter four-cylinder that can tow up to 9300 pounds. The brakes offer stellar stopping power, and the four-door crew cab has superior rear-seat headroom. Chevy also added the Multi-Flex tailgate as an option for 2021 models, making the Silverado's bed more usable than ever. Silverados with the 277-hp turbodiesel engine in 2WD are the most fuel-efficient in the segment, with an EPA-estimated 33 mpg highway rating.

Nissan Titan

The Nissan Titan, like the Toyota Tundra, exists slightly outside of the mainstream in this segment. It lacks engine choices—there is but one 400-hp V-8 option—which severely limits configurability relative to its competitors, and the Titan's overall execution seems lacking. Its ride quality is poor, and the steering lacks sharpness; look to the Pro-4X trim for off-road capability, but look elsewhere for towing capacity, as the Titan has the lowest in the light-duty class. Every model now has an 8.0-inch touchscreen with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, which fleet versions of its domestic competitors don't offer.

Toyota Tundra

The Toyota Tundra has been around in pretty much the same form since 2007—that's pre-Instagram if you need a cultural reference point. So, it's old. But the Tundra offers a spacious cabin and a decent roster of standard features, including Apple CarPlay and Android Auto phone integration functionality for most models. A 5.7-liter V-8 is the only engine option, an oddity among full-size pickups, which generally offer a plethora of engine choices. The Toyota's V-8 engine delivers mediocre fuel economy and towing performance, but the truck itself at least shines in off-road capability, even in base form. The Tundra TRD Pro model adds to that dexterity with new Fox 2.5-inch internal-bypass shocks and lighter-weight 18-inch BBS wheels.