This past Friday found me cooling my heels at our local Ford dealership from 7 AM to 5 PM while the techs did my wife's truck's 100,000-mile maintenance and repaired some winter damage. That was tedious, of course; normally, my wife would have handled the matter herself, but she's out of state visiting family, so I offered to take the appointment. And, as noted, the whole day at the Ford dealership. The bill was an eye-opener, too, but worth it in the long run, as it's a lot cheaper to properly maintain a vehicle than to constantly be buying new ones.
Now, I told you that so I could tell you this.
After spending most of the morning hanging around the service center, I decided to wander around the dealership side. I've been in the market for a pickup for some time now, specifically a Ford Super Duty. The trouble is this: New Super Duty pickups can run you close to six figures, and used ones never stay on the lot long here in the Great Land. But on this day, there was one Super Duty on the lot - a 2022 F-350 Lariat, with the 6.7-liter diesel, and something called the Tremor package that gives you 8" more clearance and steel skid plates under the drive train; good for rough Alaska roads.
I bought it. It's a big, beautiful beast, just what we were looking for. We're calling it the Behemoth, because when I stand next to it, the top of the hood is at about chin level on me, and I'm 6'1". We bought this truck for reasons of our own, chief among them the capacity to take a big slide-in camper and tow a boat, the strength and weight for bad Alaskan roads in summer and winter, not to mention the capacity to tow a house if I ever need to. But the big bonus? Imagine how much the very existence of a truck like this annoys the climate scolds and urban environmentalist nuts.
I mean, just look at the specifications on this monster. That 6.7 Power Stroke diesel generates 475 horsepower and 1,050 foot-pounds of torque. You could pull Mount Rushmore with this thing. The engine alone, according to the Ford techs, weighs over 900 pounds. Towing capacity is 12,400 pounds, but I've surely seen plenty of people towing things way over a truck's labeled capacity. It's got a 10-speed automatic transmission. 10-speed. I thought that only applied to bicycles, but there you are. A 34-gallon gas tank, which may be on the small side, but diesels are more efficient than gas engines in heavy vehicles. The sales guy I dealt with told me his F-350 with the same motor gets about 20 to 22 mpg. That's pretty good for a truck with a base curb weight of over three tons. It's almost 20 feet long, overall. Almost 7 feet wide, not counting the big mirrors. Almost 7 feet again, from the ground to the top of the cab. Four doors, five passengers, in comfort. The dashboard looks like it belongs in a 787. It's more of a command station than a driver's seat.
Taken all together, the very existence of a truck like this would have the climate scolds wailing and gnashing their teeth.
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Some years ago, I was driving my truck, a 1992 Bronco, through our Denver suburb. I stopped at a stoplight; it was a warm day, and my windows were open. On my left was a compact car carrying two pachouli-smelling betas, who started loudly and obnoxiously discussing my preferences in trucks. The one in the passenger's seat wondered aloud how I could justify driving my big utility.
I could have given him many answers: The Colorado winters, who I volunteered in blizzards to use my big 4x4 to get medical staff to their emergency room jobs, how I spent many happy days on jeep trails, how I often came back from elk season with fresh branch scrapes and a hundred pounds of red clay plastered on the truck. I offered none of those reasons. There's no need to. I only replied, "Mind your own business."
Those two nitwits would, given the chance, have proscribed my ownership of that truck by law. The climate scolds and enviro-loonies today, few if any of whom live out in the environment, would almost certainly favor proscribing my ownership of my new F-350 by law. California's impeccably coiffed Governor Newsom sure seems to want to take the once-Golden State in that direction.
That's not how any of this works. We're Americans. We're not required to justify our decisions to anyone. At least, not yet; plenty of leftist politicians would take us down that road. If asked by another pachouli-smelling beta why I own this massive, beautiful beast, I could give them many answers, but I won't. The only reply such a person would rate is "Because it suits me to do so." A truck like this makes for one happy redneck, and annoying the climate scolds is a welcome bonus.
