NY Times: The Modern Pickup Truck Retires From Work and Moves Into Town
“Americans are crazy for the utilitarian look, and nothing looks more utilitarian than a pickup. But the look is what matters these days, not the utility. At the luxury end of the pickup market, you come across utter absurdity, like the now-discontinued Lincoln Blackwood, which looked as if it was pitched directly at the short-haul drug-dealer market. It was, essentially, a cigarette boat for the road, and every bit as practical… I often marvel at America’s excess utilitarian capacity, all those off-road vehicles that never go off-road, all those pickup trucks that never pick anything up.”
One of the few times that I ever remember my dad confronting me in a tone that I could hear was when I was 17 and spouting off about rich people and their Caddies and Lincolns. He said, “Your piece of shit Chevy is just as much an ego trip to you as their fancy cars are to them. So quit being holier than thou.”
He was right. And since I’m currently driving a piece-of-shit ’89 Toyota Corrolla, his advice still yanks me out of my ego as soon as start thinking that, “… you know, it’s kind of cool driving this ugly, underpowered but dependable POS.”