I am looking for the perfect truck. That is a small S10/dakota/ not full size with a LONG bed, not one of those short bed trucks. I see alot of short bed club/quad cab trucks, but all have shortbed. does this exist?
Are you looking at used or new? 4wd or 2wd? Do you mean an extra-long bed, or just a bed the same length as the standard cab version?
Was looking for a quad or club cab used with a standard work truck bed. Like this craiglisting that shows a standard small work truck bed. http://stlouis.craigslist.org/ctd/795015344.html But this next links shows what I think is a shorter bed length http://stlouis.craigslist.org/cto/794441012.html. I was hoping to find a club/quad type small truck with the longer bed length.
Keep in mind that a Dakota is a slightly larger truck than the S10, Ranger or Japanese brands. If I recall correctly, a long bed in this category is 6’ or so. The Dakota bed could be longer. I couldn’t see the second link when I tried to bring it up, so I can tell you if the bed length is shorter in the second link. The seller could certainly measure the bed for you and reply by email if you ask.
I own an S-10 regular cab short bed, and it has a bed length of 6’. There are a handful of long-bed S-10s around, but they are all regular cab.
I’m almost positive that any pickup with a long bed AND something more than regular cab is gonna have to be full-size. They don’t exist in the compact pickup market.
The long-bed Dakota had an 8-foot bed, but was only offered with the regular cab. Since the regular cab has been discontinued, so has the 8-foot bed. The standard bed on the Dakota Quad Cab (not the Crew Cab with regular rear doors) is 6 1/2 feet long.
I doubt you’re going to find a big cab/long bed combination. The manufacturer has a given frame and chassis to work with, and if they put a longer cab on it, it’s got to come out of the bed (and vice-versa). How often do you need the extra bed length? Would it be worth buying (or building) an extender that mounts in the trailer hitch receiver and supports the longer stuff you’re hauling? Watch out that you don’t get ticketed for obstructing lights or plate (might have to plug in a new set of lights on the extension). If you’re hauling long stuff all the time, but there’s not too much off it, have you looked at overhead racks (from cab roof to the tailgate in length)? If you need to haul a lot of long stuff a lot of the time, you’ll probably have to either go to a full-size pickup, or build a custom bed/box that sticks back a few feet more. The latter may involve a bolt-on frame extension (watch out that the truck doesn’t become too tail-heavy and lose steering control). There are custom/specialized truck bed builders out there (think power company trucks, etc.), but that’s probably more money than you want to spend.
I believe you could get an older Toyota 2wd pickup with the long bed and the “xtra cab” which isn’t a true club cab in that there aren’t any seats back there, but there’s room for stuff that needs to stay dry or be locked up. The real advantage of the xtra cab for someone like me is that you can move the seat back an extra inch or so which makes them much more comfortable.
The older body style Nissan Frontier Crew Cabs had a long bed option, however it was only long compared to the very small bed that came with the trucks.