I'll start by saying the tI never understood the fascination with pick-up trucks and had no need for them.

First car I drove was my father's Plymouth Fury and then his "Dukes of Hazard Car."

In college, I I shared a VW Beatle with my brother. That was good car in winter because the engine was in the back. The year of the Moon Landing it drove my brother and I to NYC and back again. A Kidney Cruncher but still a good car.

My first car was a rotary engine Mazda sedan. A strange but good car. As an aside, those were built in Canada and not rustproofed for the excessive use of Salt in American Winters. At that time, Canada didn't use salt. So it rusted, rusted, rusted, rusted, rusted and is still rusting somewhere...

After that, It's been chrysler's of varying quality. The Chrysler 600 was a great car (it was traded in when the transmission went frothy because of bad bad bad fluids) but evolved into the 200 (piece of crap), the Viking? Peeking? hatchback with idiot lights for headlights, or another some idiot name (still a piece of crap), the fish-shaped Chrysler Concorde that had a Mafia Trunk (4 bodies no waiting). I liked that car but it was big and guzzled gasoline. and Several others over the years the years are so unmemorable that I forgot about them.

Now I have an 11 year old boxy Chrysler that I own free and clear. Considering that cars are way too expensive now and I have grown used to not paying $500 a month for 66 months just because ... When it breaks, I'll repair it. I only put on about 3000 miles a year anymore.

(BTW - "Fix it when it breaks" is a totally acceptable practice in any maintenance program in industrial and manufacturing. There are five levels of maintenance. That's the first.)

When I turned 16 in 1958, I bought my first car – a 1951 Austin A40, the model that looks like a ¾ scale 1938 Ford. A couple of days after I had it parked in the family driveway, a stranger knocked on our door. He had seen the car and was a retired Austin factory mechanic who had moved to the U.S. to live with his daughter in our neighborhood. He helped me to keep it in near factory condition. His first instructions were to “burn tractor oil.” Factory tuning was for it to burn a quart of oil for every 500 miles and tractor oil is clean-burning.

When I left for college in 1961, I traded the tiny Austin for a HUGE 1954 Packard Clipper. I bought it from a real little old lady in Pasadena. Her children had convinced her that she was too old to drive it to church every week, which was about all she ever did in it. At seven years old, it still had only a little over 3000 miles on it. It was the best car I ever owned. My brother wrecked it while I was spending my junior year abroad.

I have owned 50 or 60 cars/trucks over the years. Most of them left me with good memories and bad memories. My list of vehicles includes Studebaker, DeSoto, Packard, and others that have now gone away. At the moment we have 5 vehicles between the two of us, My soon to go away '92 AWD Plymouth van, my '08 Ford Escape with "electronic 4WD", her '10 Ford Focus, her '87 Honda Rebel and '17 Ural Patrol. Her favorite is the Ural. --FLO--

I'd trust that Ford Escape about as far as you can throw it. Probably the most recalled Ford to date.

I agree Paolo! Petrol or diesel. We have them here also as Landrover Freelander or freeloader as they are more commonly known

Dave, A pickup can be handy a couple of times a year. Dump run. Helping friends move. Bringing the new sofa she bought. etc. I need a 4X4 PU for work. I'd take shit if I showed up in a SUV and a 2 wd sedan would have people rolling on the ground laughing. I always go for as plain as possible.I got 330,000 from my '07 V-6 Silverado with manual windows. It still runs, just got to the point of not wanting to make a multi-mile walk It is OK for close to friends. I now have a Workman Dodge - as plain as it gets but with electric windows, etc. I prefer several things on the Silverado, but the V-8 is nice. I have a friend like you are thinking about. He is old and retired and uses his exquisitely detailed big Ford PU to drive to his doctor's appointments. He makes rude comments about my PU with the desert dtailing, but I tell him a PU is a tool and fancying it up to me is like putting lipstick on a hammer.

Arab Nights (imported) wrote: Fri Dec 28, 2018 11:42 am Dave, A pickup can be handy a couple of times a year. Dump run. Helping friends move. Bringing the new sofa she bought. etc. I need a 4X4 PU for work.

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I do understand the utility of a good pickup. I don't make snarky or sarcastic remarks about any person's truck. However, I have known men to buy a pickup for their second car because their wives couldn't drive them for various reasons (manual shift being the most frequent excuse). They had no other reason to own a pickup in the suburbs - they never hauled, carried, loaded, or drove off-road. I still don't make snarky or sarcastic remarks to them. I just privately think those thoughts when I'm perched on the throne during magic time.

One interesting story - - - -

I parked in the Supermarket lot one day, went inside to shop and kept dodging a nice little old lady (about 4'6" with a cane) who always seemed to be going up the aisle I was going down. When I checked out and was getting into my car, I watched her climb into a HUGE pickup that was extra high off the ground for off-road work.

To this day, I don't know how she climbed into that beast (but she did). I smiled affectionally and quietly drove home.

For dry days I have a race prepared AC Cobra,1980 vintage.Other times A Range Rover.

Had you ever drove this funny car?

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Ah, a Fiat.

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