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- Posted by: @richard-imrie
What gets my hackles up is lowering of vehicles.
Agreed, me too.
Powerglide was indestructible. I bought a 1968 Bel Air station wagon with some rust holes and a homemade gasket or two and a 307 with 2 speed powerglide. for $400 in 1975 I think. Sold it 6 years later for $250. It was my to and from work car and I endured joke after joke, but it was very very cost effective.
It’s an advantage not to care much about what other people think and less about what they say.
@mathteacher It was fun to get to 60 mph in first gear with a Powerglide!
So, I spent the last 5-10 minutes of “billable” time reading this crusty stroll down rusty-truck lane. Admittedly, with a grin.
And, I see where the idea of a ‘dropped’ car is not appealing. Although, as a race enthusiast that enjoys more than turning left, I get the low idea.
What I would really like to know is, why does a 1/2 ton, 2×4 truck need to be set up higher than any sensible person would ever want to lift a full-sized sheet of plywood? And, for fudge sake, cost as much as my first house!
C’mon Chevy/ Ford/ Dodge/ Toyota/ Nissan. Give me a decent, full-sized work truck that doesn’t require an engineered tailgate to get me in and out with 40 lbs. of wood on my shoulder. And, make sure it’s got A/C and costs less than a year of my kids’ college tuition. Should still be a reasonable profit in there… it ain’t branded spacex.
Interesting tid-bit: Lots of old Powerglide trannies have found a permanent home at the dragstrip. Chevy’s old two-speed automatic gearbox are a desirable favorite for drag racers even to this day.
This is attributed to the transmission’s almost bullet proof construction…but then again, we all knew that over 50 years ago. 😉
Sounds like you’re looking for the modern-day Ranchero/El Camino.
Ford just released it. 40mpg w/ the hybrid option, can haul a few 4×8 sheets of plywood (well, on top of helper 2×4’s), and a base price of $19,999 USD.
https://www.ford.com/trucks/maverick/2022/
Slap a bed topper on it and go survey.
Yes, I get it. It’s not as capable as the Ranger (ie. no AWD yet, no batteries for gas-free travel like the Escape, lower towing capacity, etc.). However, it’s basically Ford’s replacement for the Focus since they’ve vowed to stop making most of their cars. If you need greater capabilities, buy the Ranger/F-150. For everybody else looking for a small, cheap work pickup (remember the days when that was a thing?), you may have found it. For the cost difference to the Ranger, I’d buy a couple of good electric winches and snow tires but that’s just me. I have a Scottish father and a Dutch mother. My vehicle does not need to impress anyone–it just needs to get me to and from work. I’m strongly considering it depending on how they further develop it.
An expected $2500 tax credit in Canuck bucks for the hybrid if the current administration is consistent in their application of said breaks. If you’re going to get dinged on the taxes for these rebates, you may as well try and claw back whatever you can.
When I was a wee lad, we had a 1957 Chevrolet 3100 with a straight 6. Dad put a camper shell on it and we spent many a mile in the back on trips to California and Chicago when my grandmother’s estate was being settled. When parked overnight (with police permission) on a narrow suburban street in Oak Park, some lady hit it. We bought my cousin’s rambler for mom and us kids to get safely back to Texas and dad nursed the pickup truck back too.
When we got back, he sold the motor, scrapped the cab and turned the bed into a homemade trailer which we still have.
I’ve had a hankering the last 8 months to buy a same model truck to pull the trailer with. Haven’t found the right one yet. It has to have the spare tire mounted to the bed wall and I surely don’t want anything listed as “restomod”.
Looks like your prayers have been answered:
We had a farmer neighbor back about 1960 who bought a new Ford pickup. He told us he circled the danged thing at the dealership trying to find the running boards, but there were none. He told the salesman he would only buy it once running boards of some fashion were installed. They dickered and dickered and he finally got his running boards. He was barely over five feet tall. He would have needed a running start to leap into the driver’s seat and he was past the age of attempting such tomfoolery. His son was of similar height. His grandchildren are generally short as well with neither of the two girls being over about four foot nine inches or a good day. One teaches third grade so she can look them in the eye instead of uphill.
@jaccen hit the field and wasn??t able to really read/ reply. Thanks for the info. As a kid of the 70s, the el Camino always had a draw.
I??ll have to dig into it a little. real question is, what platform are they starting from. If it??s a crown Vic in truck form, that would be awesome. Not. ???
I think that would require refilling supplies every day. My extended cab half ton feels loaded heavily with what I keep in it on a normal work day. These days I try to minimize the time in and out of our office loading supplies, just downloads and uploads, grab the files and go. I keep my equipment and truck at home and refill the stakes, bars etc every few days as needed.
Right, so it’s a replacement for the Chevy S-10, old Ford Ranger/Mazda B-Series, Chevy LUV/Isuzu KB/Holden Rodeo, etc. If you thought those were too small, then the Maverick would be too small. It’s based on the Escape platform (take from that what you will).
Keep in mind that the current Ford Ranger is only 2 inches smaller than a 1979 F-150 by my perusing of the specs (please feel free to correct me on that, though). Expectations of what a pickup “should” be have drastically changed over the past 25 years in my experience. Apparently, we (ie. North America) never built anything prior to 1995 as we lacked pickups that are easily confused w/ bulldozers. Personally, I believe that the current truck styling/sizing is due to a combo of “gaming” the CAFE standards and effective marketing. I do not see a compelling practical argument for current sizing. Just my opinion.
We operate by the expression that “two is one, one is none” and I currently drive an E-150. If you have twice as much as you need for the day, I still think you’d be ok w/ a Maverick. My E-150 is fairly empty (1 man crew). Just personal opinion. In theory, our crews are supposed to meet the PM every morning for instructions/background info and unload gear/download data every night. The co-op college kids need something to do; checking gear and vehicle supply levels is pretty standard for someone of that rank in a survey organization IMO. Plenty of time to restock.
For comparison, most of the firms in our area (SW Ontario) are switching to Ford Transit Connect vans (ie. the small, minivan-like ones that use the “beloved” 6F35 transmission used in everything from the Escape to the Focus) w/ the big firms keeping 1 or 2 trucks for “heavy-duty” jobs out in the boonies. I have watched them haul quads and snowmobiles w/ said Transit Connect vans and they seemed fine. The quad goes off-road; the van parks on the side of the road.
Caveat: many of the local firms are switching to a model where a rental agency has a long-term agreement. This offloads vehicle maintenance, scheduling, etc., and allows the firm to focus on surveying and not on vehicle logistics. They likely do not stress taking care of the vehicles as much as they now “drive them like a rental.”
Gas efficiency is a huge cost in our business IMO. Anything you can do to lower your operating costs should be reflected upon as it directly affects your margins and competitiveness. I realize I am in the minority in that opinion when it comes to pickup sales. Thankfully, there are (now) enough models that we can all get what we want (well, mostly).
And I always get a kick how the integrated bottle opener on any item is always shown cracking a soda 😉
How long would they have kept those transit connect vans? I remember when I was in the vehicle service industry they would destroy the front tires because they had too much weight in the back (telephone companies etc).
We have been keeping vehicles 15 years. Had a 2002 GMC Sierra that rusted out, I drive a 2005 Silverado, another crew a 2010 Tacoma that everyone hates because of the lack of space. Then a 2013 Silverado and a couple newer f150s that a company we bought purchased to replace some very beat up mid 2000 Silverados.
I’m planning on another 10 years out of my 2005 as I own it and I wouldn’t make any $ on mileage with the prices of trucks if I bought newer. I’m at 334,000kms (about 204k miles I think) and 9150 engine hours. I’m getting the body and paint fixed up (half done already).
Fuel must be a good tax deduction because the boss never complains about it.
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