Among compact pickups two vehicles really stand out: The Dodge Dakota and the Ford Ranger (and clone Mazda B-Series). Dakota is the only one to offer a V8 engine and near-full-size cargo and towing capacity. Ranger is the most refined and probably the best daily use vehicle.

This year we are limiting our Recommended choices to the Toyota Tacoma. It's every bit as good as the Ranger in daily use, just a tad more expensive.

Like brother Ford Ranger, Mazda's compact pickup suffered a year-to-year sales decline in calendar 2000, falling a hefty 22.2 percent to around 30,100. Worse for Mazda, the Ranger and thus B-Series won't be redesigned until model year 2004--a long ways off in the car/truck business.

Mazda has lately been hard at work forging a new identity as a builder of cars and trucks with class-leading handling and performance. It's also busy crafting a new product plan to deliver on that promise--and a promise to parent Ford Motor Company to boost profits. How these moves will affect the B-Series is unclear now, but Ford has a tight rein on Mazda's resources, and the company seems more interested in focusing on sports cars and Euro-flavored passenger cars. With that, Mazda might just decide to give up on pickups, which means the 2003 B-Series could be the last.