I recently bought a pickup truck. A full-sized 1968 Ford F100. It has a manual four-speed transmission, a 360 cubic inch V8 engine and doesn’t get very good gas mileage. It’s mostly painted with reddish-brown primer, though the original two-tone blue and white can be seen here and there. The bench seat is covered with duct tape to keep it together. The cab smells of gasoline and it has wind wings and a manual choke.
I really like this truck. It is pretty much exactly what I was looking for and after a lot of searching I found something within my meager budget. Some guys go out and buy sports cars or motorcycles when they hit that so-called mid-life crisis. Me…I wanted a truck.
Here are some of the reasons I like this truck:
1. It’s a Ford. The Ford Motor Company is not owned by the Federal Government like Chrysler and GM. Ford took no bailout money from Obama. That’s a good enough reason for me to buy a Ford product.
2. It’s an American-made product, through and through. It was made at a time when Detroit was the center of the auto world, they had pride in what they made because they made good cars and trucks. (Exhibit A – the 43 year-old Ford truck I am now driving with pride.)
3. The truck is old enough to be exempt from smog inspections, smog certificates and smog equipment. Sorry if you think I’m killing the planet – I’m not.
4. It’s got character, not because it has Bluetooth, GPS or a DVD player, but because it’s still around.
5. My dad would love it if he were here to see it and a lot of my relatives back in Georgia would be proud.
(Disclaimer: No. I am not going to start listening to country music. No I am not going to begin wearing cowboy boots or a cowboy hat. No I am not going to begin chewing tobacco. No, I have not had a sudden recent interest in rodeos. No I am not a redneck…yet)
August 12th, 2010 8:30 am
Sounds like a desert rig to me. Na, you don’t want cowboy gear, you gotta get this, and a pair of these, and one of these. I can hear the front-porch humor now, somewhere around Tehachapi…