Monday, October 29, 2007

My Old Truck


It's probably a good idea to explain the picture at right. That used to be my truck. It was a light-taupe 1997 Ford F-150 Super cab/Long bed with a medium-mocha interior. It was also the first (and thus far only) new car I have ever owned. I actually leased it in 1996 for two and a half years before I bought and then drove it until 2005.

The picture was taken in 2000 after a micro burst in Scottsdale caused a palm tree to fall over and crush the bed. Luckily for me, the damage was not that bad and the frame was totally intact. The bed was replaced and after draining my wallet the $1000 deductible I was back on the road. I have to say that I knock Ford quite a bit because while their motto is (or at least was) "Quality is Job One", I often feel like their motto ought to be "Why would anyone buy our piece of crap cars that everyone makes fun of and we issue lots of recalls for."

Well for the record, there were at least 20 recalls that I was notified about on that truck and I only had two of them fixed. But I drove it over 250,000 miles and for the last 80,000 or so I never changed the oil. It suffered several tire blow outs and the aforementioned falling palm tree plus over a hundred trips to the slums of Tijuana Mexico. It started life like the velveteen rabbit, with lavish attention every week including all-day detail sessions and ended with lots of dents and scrapes and a set of bald tires. But even when I had a wheel fall off while driving to work (remember to check your wheel studs often) I never had great cause to curse that truck. She got me through allot of rough times and I had allot of fun with her. And today I am proud to say that I own one of her cousins, a silver Ford Exploder. I only hope that this one takes me as far and I have much fun as my last Ford.

And about that palm tree....he may have gotten my truck....but I got his brother. Thank the maker for chainsaws!

1 comment:

Guy Ellis said...

You should include the image with your blog post that way it will always be there if someone reads the post.