A truck or trailer is a large motorized vehicle intended to carry heavy payloads, transport merchandise, or perform other specialized work. Trucks range greatly in size, horsepower, and configuration, although most trucks feature straight body-on-body construction. There are different ways a truck can be classified; as a car, an athletic vehicle, a tractor trailer, or a bus. Trucks are typically classified by the type of load they can carry.
Light trucks, also known as passenger cars, are those that are small, low-wing vehicles that have front or mid-engine seating. These often have one or two doors, although some can have three or more. Some passenger cars have extended cabs, which allow the driver to access the entire vehicle from the cab. Light trucks differ from other passenger cars in that most have a gasoline engine.
Another smaller type of truck is the sport utility vehicle, which is larger than a pickup truck but is not as big as the cab of a semi-trailer truck. Sport utility vehicles are generally powered by muscle cars or other sports cars and are very popular with truck drivers who use their trucks for racing, performing drag races, or completing specialized tasks. Most sport utility vehicles, such as 18-wheelers, have rear doors, which provide better access to the interior of the vehicle compared to rear-end pickups. Sport utility vehicles may also have a box-type bed, although this is not common.
The third type of truck is the utility pickup, which was designed to haul both light trucks and sport utility vehicles. Pickup trucks fitted with wheel spars are referred to as utility pickups, while sport utility vehicles have tapered bodies, long roofs, and long sides. Some utility pickups are box-shaped; however, most of these trucks have the same box shape as sport utility vehicles. Many truck manufacturers, especially those specializing in sport utility vehicles, have designed pickups with additional options, such as side airbags, stability control, seatbelts, automatic door locking devices, and more.
The fourth type of truck is the haulage truck, which is used to transport goods or materials between two points. There are two types of haulage trucks – one is the box-type, and the other is the truck with a box-shaped body. It has a larger cargo area than its sport utility truck cousin, but because it is so large, it will be slower than a sport utility pickup. Boxy trailers are typically fitted with rear load tanks to carry a wide range of goods. They are also able to accommodate oversized loads, unlike most pickup trucks.
The final type of truck is the fifth wheel, which is used to haul wheelchairs and people with disabilities. A fifth wheel is different from a wheelchair in that it has an open bed that opens inwards to allow loading or unloading with a wheelchair. Most of these trailers are boxy or flat in shape, and they have little to no cargo area. Regardless of what type of truck is used to haul cargo, the fifth wheel is designed to fit behind a vehicle, rather than be moved along with it.