Best pickup trucks of 2025
March 25, 2022 by carwow staff
If you’re looking for the most rugged, versatile and capable vehicle for your daily duties, forget an SUV – a pickup truck might just be your best option.
Whether you need something to haul stuff around your farm, a towing workhorse, or simply a family car that’s happy to trudge up and down muddy paths, there are plenty of pickup trucks to choose from.
Sure, the choices aren’t quite as varied as you get with SUVs, but there are enough options to consider for a range of needs and budgets. Below our team of experts has put together the best pickup trucks you can buy in the UK.
Carwow’s pick of the best pickup trucks on sale in the UK:
- Ford Ranger
- Volkswagen Amarok
- Toyota Hilux
- Isuzu D-Max
- SsangYong Musso
- Ineos Grenadier Quartermaster
- Maxus T90EV
1. Ford Ranger
The Ford Ranger is the top dog in the world of pickup trucks. We put our three favourite pickups to the test (which you can see in the video at the top of the page) and the Ranger walked away with the win – though admittedly in top-spec Raptor form (more on that below).
Along with the Volkswagen Amarok, the Ranger has one of the most car-like driving experiences of any pickup truck. That’s a big compliment, because trucks used to be pretty awful to drive on the road, being noisy and bouncing around over every bump. But the latest Ranger is (fairly) quiet, comfortable and gets an interior similar to that you’ll find in Ford’s regular road cars.
The ace up the Ranger’s sleeve is the aforementioned Raptor, which has a sophisticated suspension that makes it comfier on the road and more capable off it, as well as powerful petrol and diesel engine options.
The downside? That model doesn’t qualify as a commercial vehicle so you don’t get the same tax breaks as the regular version if you’re buying it for your business. But it’s a great fun and quirky family car, particularly if you live out in the sticks.
2. Volkswagen Amarok
The Volkswagen Amarok is mechanically very similar to the Ford Ranger, but it loses out on the top spot in part because there’s no exciting performance version, but also because it’s a bit more expensive than the Ford.
That said, it’s still fantastic to drive on the road by pickup standards, and it comes with a more upmarket, sophisticated image than the Ranger. It’s about as understated as a two-tonne truck is ever going to be.
If you want the Amarok for its workhorse capabilities, another downside is that it’s not available as a single-cab model like the Ranger, which gives extra load space. But as a family car? Its double-cab arrangement means there’s plenty of room for carrying people in the rear seats and more storage capacity than most families will ever need.
3. Toyota Hilux
The Toyota Hilux has an indestructible image courtesy of a little telly show called Top Gear. You might have heard of it? Regardless, the reputation is well-earned, because the Hilux is one of the most rugged trucks you can buy so you can beat it up on a muddy farm for years and it will just keep on going, with the added benefit of Toyota’s 10-year warranty scheme.
It might be rugged, but it doesn’t feel cheap inside, particularly if you go for one of the well-specced GR Sport models, which also get better suspension to make it the best Hilux version to drive. It’s not quite as fancy as the Ranger or Amarok, but if you’ve got a particularly active lifestyle, it has everything you need.
4. Isuzu D-Max
The Toyota Hilux somewhat bridges the gap between the more car-like Ford and Volkswagen, and the likes of the Isuzu D-Max, which is closer to the traditional image of a pickup truck – i.e. simple inside and out.
The Isuzu is a bit better-suited to life on the farm than it is the school run, because it’s quite noisy on the road and isn’t as posh inside nor as comfortable as alternatives. But it represents fantastic value for money, is excellent for off-roading and can tow up to 3,500kg.
If you really want to head off the beaten track, there’s the Arctic Trucks AT35 version, which is the pinnacle of the D-Max range. It looks fantastic with its flared wheel arches, raised suspension and nobbly all-terrain tyres. It really looks like nothing else on the road. (Or off it.)
5. SsangYong Musso
You could be forgiven for never having heard of South Korean car maker SsangYong, but it makes some cheap and pleasant, if fairly basic, family SUVs. It also sells the Musso pickup truck, which is arguably its most appealing product.
Why? Well, it might not be the most enjoyable thing to drive, because it gets a bit bouncy on the road – especially if the load bay is empty – but it’s quiet and brilliantly capable off-road, as well as representing decent value for money. The interior is better than you might expect for the price, too, and if you go for the long wheelbase version, there’s a massive load area.
Ineos Grenadier Quartermaster
Ineos is a new player in the world of rugged off-roaders. The British company was born after the old-school Land Rover Defender was replaced with something that looked a bit too posh and fancy for the sort of people who like to splatter mud all over their cars and then clean the interior with a hose. And so the Grenadier SUV was born.
There’s also a pickup truck version called Quartermaster, though its payload limit means it’s not eligible for commercial vehicle tax breaks and coupled with its already high price, probably won’t appeal to those who want a business vehicle.
As such, its appeal is more limited to those who want a rugged family car but think the Ford Ranger and Volkswagen Amarok are a bit too nice and car-like inside.
It has great ground clearance, an excellent wade depth (800mm), full-time four-wheel drive and all the other good stuff off-roaders like, so while it might be rather niche it certainly has its place.
Maxus T90EV
If you want an electric pickup truck then your choices are limited to the Maxus T90 EV and, well, importing a Ford F150 Lightning or Rivian R1T from America. The latter will cost comfortably into six figures, so it’s probably just the Maxus for now.
That’s a bit of a shame, because it’s expensive (as most electric vehicles are) and not actually available with all-wheel drive, which somewhat limits its use in a muddy field. It’s not all bad though, because it does come with the 1,000kg payload required to be classed as a commercial vehicle, and has a decent range of 220 miles. Though naturally this will plummet if you load the bed.
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