Here’s How The Slate Compares To Your Favorite Old Compact Trucks

The new Slate Auto truck is here, and it looks like a fantastic little stuff-hauler. In fact, it looks a lot like some of the Jalop staff’s most beloved trucks: The classic little pickups of the ’80s and early ’90s, with their squared-off, compact bodies. This got us wondering how well the Slate really compares to those beloved trucks of yore, spec for spec, so I’m running down the numbers. How does the Slate stack up against titans like the Hardbody, the Toyota Pickup, the old Ranger, and the Mighty Max?

Today, we learn. We’re going to run through the details on all four of those beloved compact pickups, and see how the Slate compares. Does it deserve a spot in the pantheon of little trucks, or is it a dead-on-arrival pretender? There’s only one way to find out: Take a look at the specs, and see what we can learn before we get a chance to drive the Slate ourselves.

The D21 was the last generation of the old Datsun-branded trucks in the U.S., and the first to carry the Nissan name. It was, likely not coincidentally, exactly the same length as the Slate when configured as a two-door — 174.6 inches. The Slate is taller, at 69.3 inches to the Hardbody’s max of 67.1, and wider at 71 inches to the Nissan’s 67.1 at its widest. 

The Hardbody made 130 horsepower from its KA24 engine — the “truck engine” so maligned in the 240SX — but the tide of performance marches ever onward. The Slate makes 201 horsepower to the rear wheels, though zero to the front. The Hardbody, at least, got four-wheel-drive as an option. 

The Hardbody had a longer bed than the new Slate, at 74.6 inches to the new truck’s 60, though both exist in the awkward middle ground that lets you carry just about anything except a four-by-eight sheet of plywood. The D21 also came with such incredibly luxuries as a radio, something not available on the Slate. 

The Toyota Pickup is perhaps the least creatively named of our competitors, particularly when you realize that it carried the much-better Hilux badge abroad. In its shortest configuration, the Pickup exactly matched the Slate’s and Hardbody’s 174.6-inch length, though it was narrower than both trucks at 66.5 inches. In its all-time tallest configuration, a late-model version with four-wheel-drive, it very nearly matched the Slate for height too: 69.1 inches to the Slate’s 69.3. 

The Pickup was, as mentioned, available with the very truck-like four-wheel-drive not offered on the Slate. Its bed also beat even the D21, coming in at a max of 76 inches tip to tail — 16 more than the five-foot-even of the Slate. Similarly, like the Nissan, the Toyota’s interior came with a truly unfathomable level of luxury in the form of a radio. 

The Ranger is the lone American entry in our list, and we’ll compare its first generation to the Slate for the most accurate vibes representation. Fittingly for an American, the Ranger is the longest vehicle yet at up to 192.7 inches — 18 inches longer than the new Slate. Its bed came in six and seven-foot variants, both beating the Slate’s five, though both are comparable in width to the Slate’s 54.9 inches. 

The Ranger topped out at 160 horsepower, closer than the D21 and Toyota but still far from the Slate’s 201 number. Performance isn’t really going to be the name of the game with any of these trucks, but it’s nice to be able to keep up with modern traffic — even if the Slate can only pull 90 miles per hour from its rear axle. 

The Ranger had perhaps the plushest interior of the bunch, with its glistening vinyl bench seat, which makes me wonder why you can’t option a three-seater on the Slate. A back-to-basics truck that doesn’t include such a beloved option? C’mon, now. Give the people what they want, which is to have a third passenger who is constantly in the way while you’re trying to drive. 

Last on the list is the Mighty Max, the best-named truck of the bunch by a wide margin. The Mighty Max is maybe the closest visual parallel to the Slate’s design, though it’s not the closest match in dimensions. It sat 177.2 inches long at its shortest, longer than the Slate, though smaller in both width and height at 65.9 and 64.4 inches respectively. It topped out at 143 horsepower from a three-liter V6, a specific output that’s sort of incredibly low by modern standards, falling well shy of the modern EV. 

The Mighty Max could be had with up to an 89-inch bed, depending on markets, making it the only truck on the list to pass the vaunted eight-foot mark beloved by contractors and people who compare spec sheets online. The short bed, though, was a more familiar 72 inches — a nice even six feet to the Slate’s five. Like the rest, it came with four-wheel-drive as an option, and could even be had with a radio. 

The Slate may not have all the knickknacks of a modern pickup, but that’s not really what it’s trying to be. It wants to be that ’80s compact truck from Marketplace, sans all the rust and years of wear and tear. If it can offer that, without the need for gas, under 20 grand after incentives? Maybe it’ll pull a few buyers away from those Craigslist rust buckets.