2019 Ram 1500 Crew Cab pickup has more rear legroom than almost any other vehicle on the market

We recently got behind the wheel of the all-new 2019 Ram 1500 pickups, and while we can’t share driving impressions just yet, we can tell you about one rather unexpected figure that kept jumping out as we pored over the specs: rear legroom.

Yep, while we were all distracted by the pickup truck capability arms race or flashy add-ons like the new 1500’s available 12-inch Uconnect touchscreen, automakers were quietly making pickup truck cabins bigger … and bigger … and bigger, until things were positively Texas-size back there. We’re now in a situation where the 2019 Ram 1500 Crew Cab’s 45.2 inches of rear legroom (up from 40.3 in the outgoing model) bests not only the new Chevrolet Silverado’s 43.8 inches and the Ford F-150 SuperCrew’s 43.6 inches, but just about everything else on the market, too.

Compare it to luxury sedans and it’s not even close. A Lincoln Continental? 41.3 inches. A Mercedes-Benz S560? 43.0 inches. The BMW 760Li is getting there at 44.4 inches, but to best the Ram 1500’s rear real estate you’re well into the ultra-luxury category. And we mean ultra: You’d have to jump past the Bentley Mulsanne (42.9 inches) to the Mulsanne Extended Wheelbase (52.8 inches) to surpass it. Ditto the Rolls-Royce Ghost and the Ghost Extended Wheelbase.

Not even big, luxe SUVs do better. The cush Lincoln Navigator has a mere 41.1 inches in the second row, and a Bentayga just 40.9 inches.

The only competition here? The Range Rover Long Wheelbase, which gets you 47.5 inches but starts at just a hair under $110K.

They’re not massage-equipped, yet, but the 2019 Ram 1500 Crew Cab’s rear seats are the biggest in the pickup business…and all but the biggest when it comes to any new vehicle on the road.

Is it nitpicky to zoom in on one particular spec? Sure, but it’s telling.

And there are at least a couple of ways to look at this. The first is that a larger interior volume gives you more room to stash things inside; the bed gets used for stuff that can withstand the elements, while valuable or vulnerable tools get tucked away in the back of the cabin. Flip up the second row of seats, and you actually have a lot of flat floor space to play around with.

The second and more noteworthy is that, like it or not, the pickup’s role is evolving. Trucks aren’t relegated to construction sites, lumber operations and ranches anymore; they’re among the most popular vehicles in America and — as critics love to point out — the vast majority of buyers aren’t touching the limits of their ever-more-impressive towing and hauling capabilities on a daily, weekly or even monthly basis.

Pickup-builders would be foolish to ignore the realities of the changing market. We’ve all noticed it in their ever-growing lists of standard and optional creature comforts and their correspondingly higher price tags. More than that, though, pickups are feeling more and more like SUVs with beds in the back (speaking of, the 2019 1500 won’t come with a regular cab or an 8-foot bed, at least not at the outset — what does that tell you?).

For now, the 1500’s rear seats lack massage functions, so the Maybach buyers of the world probably won’t be doing much cross-shopping (the Ram’s seats do recline, though). In any case, there’s a hell of a lot of room in the second row of a 1500 Crew Cab — more than the competition and more than just about anything else on the road. So never mind the tow rating: If you have to shuttle four modern corn-fed adult American males around on a regular basis, a modern pickup might, weird as it seems to say, be your best bet.