North America is quite big. Outside the big cities, which are really big there, there is still a lot of space where Americans are also busy with everything. To be able to do everything in all that space as a homeowner or small self-employed person, you need a car. A pickup. According to the latest statistics, nearly 300 American pickups are sold per hour in the USA. Per hour.
pickups
Ford, Chevrolet and Dodge have been the big players in that market for decades. Their cars were traditionally utensils: simple, reliable workmen who faithfully received little maintenance from the American national character and had to work hard. In the more wooded areas behind the driver, a hunting rifle often hung against the rear wall. Their full family name is therefore a pickup truck. They are trucks. Workers. Fortunately, they were made for years - before the electronics were introduced in this branch of sport.
Pickups have been around for more than 100 hundred years
The basic style of a pickup has a modified truck cabin and an open box. The open box or 'bed' makes it easy to load and carry objects. The name pickup is therefore derived from its use as a vehicle to transport heavy loads and most were and are there in halftons and as a tonner. The first popular American pickup was the Ford Model T Runabout. This vehicle was produced in the factory in 1925 by Henry Ford. And that was immediately the moment that the concept caught on. In 1929, the Chrysler Corporation caught up with the Dodge pickup and in 1931, Chevrolet entered the market. By the way: Toyota made its first pickup in 1935.
Usually without V8
Despite the fact that we always think of fat V8s when talking about classic American cars, the classic American pickups have generally come off the assembly line with a brave six-line push rod engine and a manual three-speed gearbox. Incidentally, manual gearboxes are viewed with suspicion by American city dwellers. And there are entire tribes in The States that are just as familiar with manual switching as in higher mathematics. They never learned it. And they don't care. That is why many classical American pickups got / received in a later phase of life, when they were reborn recreational, an automatic and a V8.
But the first wave of American pickups with V8 and automatic transmission started as early as the XNUMXs when many Americans from outside the city came to work in cities and pickups were also allowed on the Intertstate highways. The manufacturers responded by paying more attention to the appearance of their products. The pickups lost their classic truck looks with loose fenders. There were even pickups with flat noses. Lifestyle pickups were born in the seventies. A kind of original SUVs. These cars had the toughness of a hard worker plus the luxury of a civilian car.
But somewhere they still did not deny their nature
They had clearly become more civilized, but in essence the American pickups were still utility vehicles. That is of course completely okay, but if you want to purchase a classic pickup out of pure emotion, then it is something to take into account.
We have heard that a young trendy couple of hipsters M / V actually bought their dream pickup at the telephone viewing appointment. The car was completely to your liking. The papers were written about and the test drive? That was the drive home. Less than a week later, the seller got his Randstad customers at the door as sorry opters. They had concluded that their dream car could not be driven. The manual tripod, the suspension, the steering, the brakes and the fuel consumption? They were all things they hadn't thought about in their dreams. And to provide the pickup with a V8 and an automatic transmission? To tinker with a set of front brake discs and more details like that? She lacked the knowledge and the money for that.
It's what you expect
But with the right approach, or the right adjustments (which were already done by the previous owners before the sale)? Then such an American pickup is a wonderful and honest travel companion for pure relaxation and to do practical things with it. Also not to be underestimated: the attention value of the American pickups is huge. As a small self-employed person you cannot wish for a better advertising medium.
The six-cylinder
Such an original six-cylinder block provides serious torque and, in any case, sufficient power to cope with in the American American regions (where the writing of speeding offenses is part of the earning model of the local police).
In California and Texas about a quarter of the fleet consists of pickups.
We found the Ford in the pictures at Venema Classics in Drempt
