system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why no Front Wheel Drive Pickups??

I've been in the auto business my whole life.  I've never been able to figure out why small trucks aren't front wheel drive.
gpt
There have been some mini-trucks and what not that were front wheel drive, but it's not something that's done with full sized pickups. The situation where you need maximum traction in a full sized pickup truck is when you're towing something or have a bunch of stuff in the bed, which is a situation where there's plenty of weight on the rear wheels. About the only situation where you'd see a noticeable improvement in a FWD pickup would be in the snow, and if you're in an environment that's snowy enough that for this to matter they make plenty of four wheel drive pickups.


There are some other practical problems:


* It'd be really difficult to fit a big V8 and a pickup truck sized transaxle under the hood of a pickup truck that wasn't like 8 feet wide or 10 feet tall.

* The solid rear axle that most pickups have is antiquated technology in a certain sense, but it's monstrously tough. It'd be pretty difficult to engineer a FWD pickup that wouldn't constantly be eating CV joints and what not.

* Pickup trucks handle like shit with an empty bed in large part because of their unequal weight distribution. Taking the transmission and rear axle and moving them up to the front of the truck would make this worse.