5 Most Popular Vehicles for Dads

DETROIT (TheStreet) -- Dads realize that once they have kids, they have to make sacrifices.

This means that when TrueCar.com compiled lists of the top vehicles preferred by men and the top vehicles preferred by dads, the differences were significant.

Put it this way. For men, the top five cars include the Porsche 911, GM's (GM) Chevrolet Corvette and three pickup trucks. For dads, it's two pickup trucks and three smaller vehicles from Asian manufacturers.

In other words, one set of guys prefers the Porsche and the other set drives a Honda (HMC) .

This should not be surprising. Being a dad means growing up and facing reality. That Porsche costs about $85,000 and the Corvette costs about $56,000. The Accord costs $26,428. Right there you have a year of college or possibly even enough money to make a down payment on braces for the kids.

"The list of cars men prefer has a lot of luxury sports cars, which we don't see in the list of cars fathers prefer," said TrueCar analyst Kristen Andersson. "Fathers are more practical consumers.

"Sport vehicles typically have no back seat and less room and are meant for one or two people in the car," Andersson said. "For families, fuel economy is a big hit, as is cargo space and trunk space."

Besides, "some statistics say women influence 85% of all car purchases, so it's safe to say there is some female influence in what gets picked by dads," she said.

TrueCar.com selected the top five cars for dads, based on a nationwide survey of more than 200,000 fathers who bought new cars in 2011 and were polled by mail and Internet about their purchases.

By the way, you may have noticed that this story is being published two days before Father's Day. We should say that we don't really expect our kids to give us a new car for Father's Day. Although the kids have all left, the 1996 Mercury van with 200,000 miles is still fine with us.

But a phone call would be nice.

Here are the top five vehicles for dads. Ford F150

The No. 5 vehicle for dads is the Ford(F) F150. It sells for an average price of $27,730 and combined fuel use is 19.8 miles per gallon, according to TrueCar.

It is not surprising to see the F150 on the list, given that it is the most popular vehicle in the U.S. In fact, the F150 is the only vehicle on the top five lists for dads as well as for men, where it ranks third.