Old Men and Old Trucks
There is a certain look and feeling that I’m enamored with. It’s the vision of an older man and his pickup truck. I’m not talking about the retiree that goes out and buys a new three-quarter-ton with all the crazy crap that pick-up trucks have these days. I’m talking about the guy in his late 60’s or early 70’s who wears a short tan ball cap and drives his old 1960s-1970s; garage kept pickup truck. These trucks are clean with no rust or bumper stickers. There is no tinted glass and no power breaks, windows or power anything. These trucks only seem to have only been used for trips to the hard ware store on sunny days.
I picture these old guys changing the oil every month regardless of miles driven. These were the trucks that only had to have points, plugs, rotor button, distributor cap and plug wires replaced and that was a tune-up. There were no sneaky little regulators buried under other components that one can’t find without a diagnostic computer. There were simple trucks that were made to last.
One could buy one of these trucks new from the show room floor for a price that is less than most John Deere riding mowers today. I wonder how one can justify buying a $35,000 truck in this economy. I wish GM and Ford could go back and build an inexpensive truck again. A truck that an every-day person could work on and drive. I don’t mind not having air conditioning. The compressor is shot in my present truck and I’m not going to fork out a thousand dollars to get it fixed. I want hand crank windows. I just spent close to $400 replacing my power window switches and one window motor.
As I get older I can see myself with an old truck. I’ve had a couple of them in the past, and though my present truck is more comfortable, it just doesn’t have that pick-up truck spirit. I have my tan baseball cap. Now I just need an old truck.
posted by The Guy Who Writes This at 4:00 AM
5 Comments:
Our truck is old, a 1988 Ford. It was almost new when we bought it. We sold it once to the grandson, who found out Cliff knew what he was talking about when he said it only gets 12 MPG. So we bought it back, because sometimes you need a truck. In 4 more years, we can get an antique license and will never have to license it again.
Hear hear! Some things are not improved by making them more complicated. A new vehicle today costs more than I would be willing to pay for a house. And you need to be an electrical engineer to service a car nowadays. I'd love something old and simple I could tend to myself.
Hmmm.... does that make me an old man? Pfui.
I'm the exact same way. I want to take care of things myself, not dish out a couple hundred dollars to some other guy to tune-up MY truck.
Though I do wish that gas mileage was a tad bit better in the older trucks.
I'll ruin your vision of a truck and just say, how about my Dad's former truck...
Donna, Cliff is not only a fortunate man because of the truck, but he has an Oliver tractor as well. That makes him a hall of famer in the Guy world.
Darev, funny you mention it, but all the problems I'm having with the truck now are all electrical in nature.
Joe, it's hard to believe that trucks are more fuel efficient these days with all that crap they are dragging around. Trucks probably weigh twice as much as did back in the old days.
Robb, that was a working truck. He used that thing way beyond it's recommended use. Plus using any truck to plow snow is a death sentence for any truck.
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