Americans love their trucks. There’s just no doubt about it. They write country music songs about them. They love big ones, small ones and all the ones in between.

Halfway through the sales calendar year for 2003, trucks remain the favorites, taking the top three sales spots.

The Toyota Camry remained the most popular car in the first half of 2003.
A perennial bestseller, the Ford Explorer is the only SUV among the top ten sales leaders for 2003.

The Chevrolet Impala, one of six cars on the top ten list, ranks tenth.

Obviously, Americans continue to prefer their full-size pickup trucks. Sales for the first half of calendar 2003 show that the Ford F-Series, Chevrolet Silverado and Dodge Ram were the top three sellers, respectively, in the country, according to sales figures provided by automakers.

The top selling vehicles, in order, are:

• Ford F-150
• Chevrolet Silverado 1500
• Dodge Ram 1500
• Toyota Camry
• Honda Accord
• Ford Explorer
• Ford Taurus
• Honda Civic
• Toyota Corolla
• Chevrolet Impala Compare

   But even the Japanese manufacturers are getting into the act. Although they’ve had a large slice of the small pickup market for years — most notably with the Toyota Tacoma and Nissan Frontier, they’re now set to go bumper-to-bumper with the Big 3 American trucks, Dodge, Chevy and Ford.

Toyota just introduced a crew cab version of its full-size Tundra and Nissan debuted its first full-size truck, the Titan, at the Detroit Auto Show.

The Titan comes in two and four-wheel drive versions as well as in extended and crew cab configurations.

Will either Toyota or Nissan displace any of America’s best selling trucks on the Top 10 list anytime soon? Doubtful.

But when someone writes a country music song about a Japanese pickup, it’s going to be time for the Big 3 to worry.