Huckleberries Online

HBO @ Noon: Rise & Fall Of Pickups

Posted by DFO

Feb. 3, 2009 12:10 p.m. • 10 comments

For 27 years, the top-selling vehicle of any kind in the U.S. has been the Ford 150 pickup truck. But a terrific piece by Josh Levin at Slate suggests that its long reign may be coming to an end. Gas prices are of course one big reason: “As prices spiked above $4 per gallon in May and June, the F-150 was overtaken on the monthly sales charts by a bunch of puny sedans with good fuel economy: the Toyota Corolla, Toyota Camry, and Honda Civic,” Levin writes. “With the 2008 F-150s failing to sell, Ford had to delay the launch of the 2009 model for two months while it pushed the previous year’s trucks off the lot at deep discounts, cutting into those $4,000-per-vehicle profit margins/Jonathan Weber, New West. More here.

Question: Do you drive a pickup truck? Did you consider trading it in when gas prices hit $4 per gallon?

10 comments on this post so far. Add yours!

JeanieSpokane on February 03 at 3:56 p.m.
I can’t believe nobody has commented on this. I may be in the wrong crowd, but it used to be that the guys around me just had to have a “pickup.” They used it to “pickup” their junk lying around the house and yard; “pickup” the extra fridge for the beer; “pickup” the Christmas Tree; “pickup” parts for the pickup. And the less frills the better - no muffler? HooRah. No bucket seats - the bench is for cowboys, rustlers, mechanics, and repairmen, manly macho men - with their arms latched around their girlfriends like so much seatbelt. A rumbling, roaring engine and absolutely no absorber left in the shocks. And they don’t drive paved highways either when there is a perfectly good rocky, potholed road to bounce along.

Then along came $4/gal gas and all those pickups have been sitting, still with whatever they “picked up.”
hmoffsuite on February 03 at 4:13 p.m.
>>> ” the bench is for cowboys, rustlers, mechanics, and repairmen, manly macho men”

Old Montana joke:
Do you know why cowboy hats curl up on the sides?

Ans.

So they can sit 3 wide in the front of the pickup.

(I actually read that on a bathroom wall somewhere in Montana)
Kage_Mann on February 03 at 5:06 p.m.
One time a seen a very young ‘chic driving a big Dodge Ram truck and she stopped at the convenience store I was at.I asked her how much her monthly payments were and she gave me a blank stare.Finally,she blurted out that her daddy had bought her the pickup.Why,does a young woman need to have a big***Dodge Ram anyway? What is she going to haul with it? Partiers and a keg of beer?
Transplanted_Texan on February 03 at 5:09 p.m.
Wow, if a complete stranger in a convienience store asked me about my own monthly finances, I’d tell ‘em to shut up and mind their own business. That said, you’re right, she sounds pretty ridiculous.
Cindy_H on February 03 at 6:28 p.m.
This is why I tell my kids not to talk to strangers. Especially, strangers who ask personal financial questions.
Besides, everyone knows girls shouldn’t drive big trucks. Why, they should drive aging Ford Pintos and pray to God they marry up to big a** pickups.
Escapee on February 03 at 9:58 p.m.
My Dream: To see Prehistoric Dodge Ram Pickups settling in a gurgling heap at the La Brea Tar Pits, having gone the way of dinosaurs before them. Speaking of which, in this economy, with cutbacks and layoffs rapidly decimating the workforce in Detroit as well as dealerships nationwide…it’s rather ironic that the automakers have “employee pricing” sales…first of all, there’s less and less employees by the minute in the automotive industry, and most likely, those employees who are left probably aren’t thinking about buying a new vehicle these days, no matter how low the price…

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D.F. Oliveria is a columnist and blogger for The Spokesman-Review. Huckleberries Online was judged the best 2008 Idaho newspaper blog by the Idaho Press Club. And the best 2007 news blog in the Pacific Northwest by the Society for Professional Journalist. Print Huckleberries is a past winner of the Herb Caen Memorial Column contest by the National Association of Newspaper Columnists. The Readership Institute of Northwestern University cited this blog as a good example of online community journalism.