Imitation is the finest form of admiration.

So I have gone and done it.  What you say?  What?  I have stepped off the cliff.  I have 'thrown caution to the wind', I have damned the torpedoes, I have resisted the urge to be 'reasonable', I have ignored advice to be practical.  I have done something that always elicited the response from me 'That is too cool, I want to do that someday' when someone ELSE did it.  Now I have done it. What have I done?  After all that it ought to be good eh?  

I bought a 1963 C10 Fleetside Longbed 3/4 ton pickup truck with a 4-speed SM 420 tranmission and a straight six 292 cubic inch motor.  (what a mouthful)

The only follower of this silly blog: Charlie Whitney bought a Triumph Spitfire a while ago.  When he did I remember thinking just what mentioned thinking 'That is too cool, I want to do that someday.'  Since then I have lost track of the project but regardless I am sure it still fits into 'cool', after all it is Charlie.  

Well, sportscars and motorcycles ... get me in trouble.  I am sticking to mountain bikes and sea kayaks for the full gonzo 'full throttle' behavior that tends to get me in trouble.  My longtime erstwhile friend Lynn Coates had a truck much like this one in the 1980's when I was twenty-something and I loved that truck.  It was black and white and she towed a matching black and white horse trailer to all the Events that she competed in and we all tagged along on motorcycles to applaud, support and travel New England.  Since then I have developed the opinion that all the new American built trucks are just silly.  They are outrageously expensive, all the 4WD models are about a foot too high off the tarmac and they have all lost the honest work ethic design that made the pickup truck what it isn't today.  Why do I need a full size pickup that is ostensibly meant for work to have a bed so high that the manufacturer offers as an option a step and handrail on the tailgate just to get in the bed?  Why?  I will tell you why; Because most pickups are no longer really utility vehicles anymore.  They are marketed and purchased as lifestyle accoutrements.  Pickups these days are like bodybuilders.  Big and muscular and totally focused on looking like they are strong and hard working.  Except the focus has moved from hard work and getting the job done to LOOKING the part.  In a word: Posers.  I am not saying that everyone that buys a truck these days is a poser and that pickup trucks aren't any good for work.  They aren't all posers driving posers.  BUT most of the pickups on the road are daily drivers for guys that don't WORK for a living.  They could get along just as well with a conservative sedan for the use they give the truck.  Like I said: accoutrement.  Put another way: penis extension.  A reflection of what a MAN should drive.  "The Heartbeat of America", "Built Ford Tough", Dodge Ram "Big Horn Edition".  Current day pickup trucks are like cartoons.  

So why did I buy one?  Well ... here is the thing.  I am a guy, an American guy.  I am a lot of other things too including iconoclastic, contrary and independent to a fault.  I love pickup trucks but I can't stand pretense and the new trucks and most of the people who drive them are full of pretense.  Old pickup trucks were heavy, slow and low and they were not a socially popular vehicle to drive, they were an essential on farms and many other places but no one drove one that didn't need one.  They were too hick.  Things changed and more and more people worked jobs that were not physical.  In fact the real money was in a job where you didn't 'work'.  After a few generations chasing the American Dream and realizing that it wasn't a Dream the popular mind of the populous began to romanticize the ethos of the pickup truck.  That is when the shift from truly mundane bucolic utility vehicle to chest thumping, musclebound poser vehicle began.  I had a pickup truck: a nice 1996 Ford Ranger.  That was a great truck.  Nothing fancy, got the job done.  I used it for what it was good for: moving big stuff from here to there.  I used it a lot.  I felt justified in owning it because I used it where no other type of vehicle would do.  Well, I sold that vehicle, I wish I hadn't but I did.  

Now I drive a Honda Element.  I call it my Manivan.  Practical?  Sure.  Like you read about.  But it lacks something.  As cool as it is it is low on ... vehicular soul.  Not as low as a minivan but low. It does everything I want it to do.  Why then?  Why?  

I can't sit on the hood.  Shit I can't even lean on it.  I plowed into a snowbank in my first Element and the pressure on the front end pushed the hood up just the tiniest little bit in one place.  Well I thought I might be able to just push it back, so I put my thumb on the spot and pushed down ... much to my dismay I dimpled the hood right where I pushed with my thumb.  The metal in the hood is so thin that it will permanently deflect from the pressure of a thumb.  For Pete's Sake!!  I can sit on the hood of the C10, all 225 pounds of me without effect.  

Why? I like bench seats.  Pickup trucks are not available with bench seats anymore.  The best you can do is what is called a 60/40 split seat.  I don't like bucket seats.  Mostly because the size of my 'bucket' is not the size of your bucket and I invariably feel a bit cramped in the 'one size fits all' bucket seats of today.  I like that the old school bench seats weren't sculpted or shaped to fit tops and bottoms.  They were flat and smooth and went all the way across.  You could sit right next to someone or ... not.  

Why? The bed floor is nice and low.  Pickup trucks are thusly named for their utility in ... (stay with me now) picking things up.  Which is to say that their ostensible primary purpose was to facilitate putting things large and small in the back.  You know this, I know this.  The higher the bed floor is from the ground (that you and I are standing on) the more difficult it is to put something in the truck.  Imagine that you are carrying something heavy: a transmission.  If you were strong enough to carry a transmission all on your lonesome you would certainly be doing it with straight arms using the larger stronger muscles in your back to do the work.  So putting the transmission in the bed of a truck might be possible if the bed was roughly at the height of your hands with arms at your sides.  Next time you are near a current Ford, Chevy, GMC or Dodge full size truck check the height of the bed.  Dollars to donuts it is not at hand level.  My new 'old' truck has a nice low bed.  

Why?  (this is the last one I promise)  I like the way it looks.  There are some pretty bold looking new trucks: like the Dodge Ram but they all look like they are trying too hard.  Like bodybuilders.  Actually I like the look of many of the older trucks but my favorite is the '60-66', first generation C10 (actually it is the second generation as Chevy made the first generation for one year: 1960)  

So in the spirit of my friend Charlie: an inspirational person, I have begun the journey.  Thanks Charlie.  

The first step is to get the truck here.  It is 1500 miles north in Oroville WA.  I will keep you posted.