Land of pickups

Some wiseguy once said pickup trucks are all about individuality, and that is why everybody has one.

He could have been talking about the Inland Northwest.

This is truck country. One national survey showed that the mountain West (from Idaho to New Mexico) has the highest level of pickup truck ownership. (New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania had the lowest.)

Wayne Cornwell heard those stats and nodded in agreement. Dealerships here sell a lot of pickups, said the president of the Spokane New Car Dealers Association.

Why?

Well, a lot of people use them on the job. But there’s something else going on.

“Lifestyle,” said Cornwell, who is also sales manager at Becker Buick/Pontiac/GMC.

That’s where it gets interesting.

Sure, there are plenty of pickup drivers here who regularly haul this, tow that and need all the torque they can get. And because trucks now come in all sorts of sizes and seat configurations, many view them as versatile alternatives to more conventional family vehicles.

But 44-year-old Gary Middleton is man enough to admit the truth. He has a pickup partly because of how it makes him feel.

“It’s just something you do here, regardless of what you do for a living,” said Middleton, a corporate accountant in Spokane.

Call it a Spo-guy thing.

Pickups and manly self-image?

“It does seem to go together like pie and ice cream,” he said.

(Middleton’s wife, Kimberly, just asks that he not refer to his truck as “the rig.”)

Pickups have long been an Inland Northwest icon. This status has its roots in our rural traditions.

It has been said that for some farmers, a pickup was like a second skin.

To their fans, these vehicles symbolize rugged independence and get-‘er-done usefulness. At a time when some of us might feel numb and ineffectual, that’s an image more than a few city dwellers covet.

To understand the appeal of pickup trucks in Spokane, just consider the forces that shape the mindset of this city.

Remote and surrounded by vast stretches of sparsely populated countryside, Spokane is a conflicted regional hub often ill at ease with its own quasi-urban nature. Many here arguably are in denial about this being a city and prefer to identify with a twangy jeans-and-boots perspective.

No law against that.

Moreover, the Northwest’s national image is largely shaped by Seattle. Sure, it’s a culturally vibrant, economically dynamic metropolis.

But some of us over here tend to view it as, well, slightly effete.

So are there Spokane men who yearn to make a highly visible statement about themselves that says “I’m capable, competent and no city slicker”?

To borrow a phrase – Truck, yeah!

The auto industry understands this, of course.

“They are appealing to what we imagine ourselves to be or what we want to be,” said Kristine Ehrich, a consumer behavior specialist who teaches marketing at Washington State University. “They are definitely selling more than utility.”

That’s really no secret, she said. Just look at the testosterone-fueled commercials and ads for pickups.

Or consider the names: Ram, Ranger, Silverado, Canyon…. There are women who buy and drive pickups, but it doesn’t take a mindreader to figure out who the industry has in its sights.

One local observer characterized pickups as “the male equivalent of a boob job.”

The head of Toyota’s truck division recently listed for a New York Times reporter the primary targets of the company’s marketing of its beefed-up Tundra pickup: outdoorsmen, home-improvement types, NASCAR fans, motorcycle enthusiasts and country music lovers.

Yes, there are a few of those folks around here.

Others have looked at the numbers and concluded that pickups sell best in markets that tend to vote Republican.

Still, there’s something more going on here than simply playing to broad stereotypes.

Not all trucks are new. And some guys regard their high-mileage rattletraps and peeled-paint beaters with an affection that is somewhere between fond and familial.

Vintage trucks can even prompt admiring glances from those who would place themselves on the compact hybrids end of the auto-social spectrum.

Middleton, the accountant, has given it some thought.

“Ultimately, I think the appeal of the pickup to Inland Northwest guys stems from the fact that, even though some of us have evolved socially and culturally, we are still rooted in the ideas of our fathers – independent, hardworking, outdoorsy,” he said in an e-mail. “My big-city friends are a generation or two removed from that.

“If it’s broke, they call the plumber, so they don’t need a truck to haul parts.”

Online columnist Walter McManus put it another way: “There are two types of people – pickup drivers and wusses.”

The former, surveys show, don’t tend to wear their seat belts.

Garry McCalip, a 54-year-old homebuilder in Spokane, drives a big pickup on the job. He also climbs into one during his off hours.

“I like ‘em,” he said, leaning out of his cab in a downtown parking lot.

It is easy to believe him. As he warmed to the subject, he got a gleam in his eye.

“The one I have at home, it’s got even more power.”

Marvin Safe, 31, who does maintenance for the schools in Sprague and Lamont southwest of Spokane, has a pickup. Out where he is, seemingly everyone does.

He’s a little skeptical about at least some of the truck owners who live in Spokane. Are they insecure grown-ups shelling out $35,000 so they can play cowboy?

“Many city guys have nice trucks simply for their macho appeal and would never consider actually throwing bales or barrels or barbed wire in the back,” he said.

But he doesn’t blame them. “Trucks are great.”

Of course, who is to say who needs one and who doesn’t?

If you haul some lumber or move a refrigerator once a month, doesn’t that qualify – even if you park in a downtown garage Monday through Friday and wear a suit at work?

“Practical” can be in the eye of the beholder.The problem is, pickup owners – among others – don’t always understand their own motivations.

“Sometimes people can give you a rational reason for a behavior,” said Laura Asbell, a clinical psychologist in Spokane. “But it’s not necessarily the real reason we’re doing something.”

Why a truck? Around here, the answer is apt to be “Why not?”