There was also a lot of targeted ads that destroyed masculinity if you owned a car. Truck companies were claiming a truck made you more handsome, resourceful, trustworthy and all sorts of other claims that somehow made you a better person for owning a truck.

It's easy to fix, just apply CAFE also to those pickup trucks. Today it's just applied to regular cars

Which is funny because the opposite law in Japan is what resulted in the tiny truck on the right. They have a class of cars, Kei cars, that are small and very economical. So if a car was too big and wasn't efficient enough they'd have to pay fees... so they went tiny.

I'd never heard of CAFE fees before;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_average_fuel_economy?wprov=sfla1

I think this is the specific bit that you are referencing;

CAFE has separate standards for "passenger cars" and "light trucks" even if the majority of "light trucks" are being used as passenger vehicles. The market share of "light trucks" grew steadily from 9.7% in 1979 to 47% in 2001, remained in 50% numbers up to 2011.

Interesting also;

In addition, a Gas Guzzler Tax is levied on individual passenger car models (but not trucks, vans, minivans, or SUVs) that get less than 22.5 miles per US gallon (10.5 L/100 km).

Thanks so much for pointing out the CAFE restrictions. I never knew they existed, and it explains much about the growth of autos in general since 2011.