David likes to call me up and ask about the old 1989 Ford F-150 he bought for me, because even if he decided he didn’t have the time/space/energy to deal with yet another old beater (well, we know how long that lasted) he can definitely enjoy it vicariously through me. So, he’ll call and just want to know how the truck is doing and when I drove it last and how it felt and speculate on the issues with the clutch and have me describe the feel of the vinyl seats in detail or the smell of the exhaust. If he could just say “hey, put the F-150 on the phone” and talk to it directly, I think he would, and I think it would end up in one of those “no, you hang up first” kind of situations.
Anyway, during one of these calls, David and I were talking about the truck and realized something significant about trucks and the culture we live in: when it comes to level of shittiness, cars and trucks are not judged the same way. Trucks get a pass for coolness in ways that cars simply don’t, and this is an idea worth exploring, because I’m not entirely certain what’s going on. In simplest terms, it’s this: a beat to shit car is embarrassing, but a beat to shit truck is cool. Why?
Just so we’re all on the same page here, let me break down exactly what I’m taking about, using my own truck as an example, a 1989 Ford F-150 with a lot of wear and a very clumsy and peeling hand-brushed purple paint job. Let’s just break down some basic facts about this truck: it’s rough in a lot of places, it has broken trim parts inside, it’s scratched up and dented and as I mentioned, the paint job was done by hand and is peeling so badly on parts of the hood it looks and feels like stucco.
This truck is also common as boogers in nostrils, a Ford F-150, the best-selling vehicle in America for years and years. It can make zero claims of exoticism or rarity. Everyone has seen these, all over the place, all the time. Seeing one is a non-event.
The transmission is agricultural and grinds going into reverse and first, and, let’s be honest, potentially any gear, of which there are only four. There are all kinds of evidence of weird fluids that have been spilled in the bed. It’s the opposite of elegant or refined or sleek, it doesn’t telegraph wealth or overt status or anything like that at all. Oh, and the muffler is currently banging around loose in the bed.
And yet, somehow, it’s cool.
Now, let’s compare this truck to another vehicle in Ford’s lineup from 1989, something non-truck but as close as we can get in other ways, another mass-market big-selling car, like the Taurus. The Taurus sold for a bit more than this F-150 did (the F-150 went for about $11,000 in 1989, while the Taurus started at about $15,000) but we’ll call that close enough. If you had a 1989 Ford Taurus in exactly the same condition as my F-150 – a common, non-exotic or inherently that interesting car, runs basically well, transmission makes awful grinding sounds sometimes, some interior trim broken off, dents, hand-brushed purple paintjob, muffler banging around in the trunk – and you pulled up somewhere and got out of that car, nobody would think you were cool at all. They would think look at that poor bastard, and they’d spend a moment imagining all of the miserable life decisions you’d made to get you to the point where you were rolling around in a sloppy purple Taurus with your muffler in the trunk.
Keep in mind, in this thought experiment everything else about these two vehicles is the basically the same – same manufacturer, same badges, same condition, same color, same everything, except one is a four-door sedan and one is a truck. And one immediately casts you as a loser who probably does weird shit like eating ketchup sandwiches or drinking beer through a straw while the other subtly implies you may be a cool sort of person who does interesting things in their spare time, possibly including chain-saw sculptures.
Still not convinced? Okay, look at this picture I took of my truck yesterday:
It’s just my shitty truck. But it looks kind of great out there in the verdant greenery, basking in the sun. How would this exact same photo look with that Taurus? Or a similarly-battered Honda Civic or a Nissan or Chevy or whatever non-truck? It wouldn’t be nearly as appealing, it’d just be some shitbox rusting in a field, as opposed to something that manages to evoke ideas of carefree summer nights and honest work and the occasionally intoxicating smell of sweat on skin any number of idealized, romanticized ideas about a life that we may never have even ever experienced.
This isn’t unique to Ford or any particular carmaker. Here’s another example: I went to Copart and looked for two late-1980s Toyotas, one a car and one a truck, and grabbed two of the first results I found. Here they are, a 1989 Toyota Camry and a 1987 Toyota Pickup, both in about equally shitty condition:
Which of those would you rather be seen in? The Camry feels like a car you’d be driving because you had no other choice, and the truck feels like something you might drive because it helps you do things you want to do. The truck feels intentional.
Of course, this isn’t really rational, though we can come up with some reasons why it may be the case: trucks are, ideally, designed to do rugged, hard work that can have the side effect of taking a toll, visually, with scraped and dents and other evidence of use and wear. Our idea of a truck is one that can accept physical imperfections and consider them character, while our idea of conventional cars like sedans or hatchbacks or even SUVs and Crossovers is one that regards any wear or visible damage as an actual flaw, something that only devalues instead of adding charm or character.
If you need more evidence that this double standard is real, think about fashion shoots you may have seen with cars, in catalogs or on billboards or wherever. Cars do show up in these shoots as backgrounds or props, and those cars are either charming, interesting, usually vintage cars like classic Minis or Beetles or Fiat 500s or Citroën 2CVs, and those can sometimes be in rough condition, but their unusual, appealing looks and relative rarity give them a pass.
There is also plenty of fashion photography that uses lovingly-maintained vintage cars, or even rougher ones, but only if they’re old enough or interesting enough to have a following. If it’s a mainstream, common vehicle in fair to crappy condition, no fashion photographer is going to use it. Nobody is draping a model over the hood of a 1991 Chevy Lumina with surface rust and mismatched door.
But they might get a model to perch on the open tailgate of a slightly rusty 1991 Chevy C/K 1500 truck with t-shirts for seat covers, and that would be just fine.
Whatever is going on here says a lot about our society, because it doesn’t stand up to a lot of empirical scrutiny. A beat-to-shit hatchback or sedan can have accomplished as much tireless, important work as a pickup truck, and there are plenty of pickup trucks that have spent lives hauling nothing more rugged than grocery bags. But the truth doesn’t matter here, it’s all about perception, because cars and trucks aren’t really rational things.
The fact is that wear and tear and evidence of hard living turn into character and dignity on a mainstream, common truck, and shame and disgrace on mainstream, common car. One suggests a life of honest, gritty work that ends with the driver squinting into a sunset, satisfied and at peace, and the other suggests a life of poorly-paid jobs, indignities, and a day that ends drunk and asleep face-down in a bag of Cheetos. I’m not saying it’s fair, I’m just saying that’s how it seems to be.
So, the take away here is that if you don’t have a lot of money but are sensitive to how your car makes people perceive you, you can get away with a hell of a lot more with a shitty truck than a shitty car. And all it costs is more gas money and everyone asking you to move their couches.
Not the worst deal.
IMO, old beat up trucks are not ‘cool’, its just that nobody else will really give a shit or have no opinion at all. Basically they are invisible. While old beat up cars of similar vintage do get the pity stares.
Counterpoint– in the 2020 doldrums (have those ended?) I bought a 1995 Oldsmobile Cutlass Cruiser (the wagon) in fairly rough shape. Non-running, faded paint in places, Buick roadmaster wheels, etc. Basically just an old forgotten Oldsmobile.
I got it running nice, and now, without any real cosmetic fixes, I am complimented at least once a week on my car and I see joy in peoples’ eyes when they see my wagon. Perhaps some people think I’m broke and just getting by, but when most see it they just assume it’s my intentional choice (which it absolutely is)
“… and the other suggests a life of poorly-paid jobs, indignities, and a day that ends drunk and asleep face-down in a bag of Cheetos.”
One does not have to live a life of poorly-paid jobs and indignities to wind-up drunk and asleep face-down in a bag of Cheetos. Not that I’m speaking from experience or anything. Nope. Not that.
My 1994 Ford F-150, Fire Engine Red and bought from my 88 year old neighbor a year before he died, laughs at my other two cars. Seriously. Late at night I can hear it in the driveway making fun of my 2009 Camry (a gift from my mother when she quit driving – praise the lord) and my wife’s 2010 VW Beetle Convertible. The truck laughs at them until they are crying.
Isn’t this a function of the current automotive landscape? Trucks are popular, while sedans (“cars”) are just a commodity. Look at the resale values of these comparisons – the trucks currently command a premium vs their equals. The sedan is an undesirable form whether new or used.
Why? Because it is a P-I-C-K-U-P T-R-U-C-K. You should know better than to even ask the question. Expanding of Immanuel Kant, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel probably said it best: It is because it is.
I think it’s because trucks don’t have a style to be ruined, they’re designed to look good with the bed replaced by diamond plate and a company logo on the doors, whereas cars are styled to look good on the showroom floor. Cars that have a more aggressively utilitarian styling will have a similar coolness to trucks, like GM G-bodies and Ford Panther body. I think it’s more so the fact that long straight lines and chrome bumpers look better all banged up and rusted out than bubbly plastics that once looked great at the showroom.
That first paragraph is art, and besides great car content, is the reason why I come here. Bravo sir, and keep it up guys, I love the site.
Perhaps it’s because the Taurus is meant to be used and replaced, where a truck is meant to be used…and used again. A truck can become a faithful friend that never lets you down. A Taurus is a faithful friend until it lets you down. And because trucks are “simpler”, they can be fixed in the driveway to be a faithful friend again.
As well, at least from the perspective of somone who was once a young boy, trucks are cool. Ask any boy whether they would rather ride in the Taurus or a pickup, odds are they will choose the pickup.
Little boys, in my experience, love tractors and trucks. And those little boys grow up to become men, aka larger, hairier little boys.
I love sports cars, but between the two presented options, I would take the truck every damn time.
Old pickup trucks are cool because they still have utility. No one wants to haul grass, trash, dirt, gravel, or an old engine in their fancy $98,323 Suburban, but a beater 1989 F-150 is perfect, and lets you legit instead of looking like a garden center, mall crawling, city slicker poser.
I got you beat. What sold better than all of those in the 80’s but gets no love whatsoever? I have the quintessential 1980’s minivans (and an older example with the quad sealed beam headlights) and that poor thing gets no love whatsoever when I argue it deserves way more respect than it gets.
I actually just bought a (kind of) shitty pickup. And I know that not only did I know I would get a pass for dings and scrapes, I also realized how differently I judge things. I looked at an Infiniti SUV. Nothing major wrong with it, just a little bit of trim knocked off and a touch of rust. Then I looked at a Chevy pickup with rust bubbling under the paint in the wheel wells and an airbag light on.
I didn’t buy either one, but I judged the pickup as being in a reasonable condition. In my mind, that luxury SUV should have been taken care of, but the pickup didn’t need to be.
Admittedly, I was looking for something that would hold what was left of its value, and I know selling a dinged up luxury vehicle would be difficult, but I also just looked at them differently.
The biggest advantage of both vehicle is near-indestructible polycarbonate headlamps. They are only one that survive the frontal crash intact…
Cool old trucks don’t have old car stuff. Carpeting isn’t cool. Infotainment systems aren’t cool. AC is “cool”, but not cool so much as tolerable. High sidewalls are cool. Lots of room in the engine compartment is cool (Straight six and room to stand!). Normal ride height is cool, lifted is uncool. Detroit locker rear axle is cool. Full time 4wd is not. Weird fleet paint colors from new are cool (US Forest Service green, FTW!) Custom rear bumpers made of diamond plate with a vice bolted on are cool. Chrome bumpers not cool. Ladder racks ( sure, put your kayak on it, I won’t tell) cool. Fake roll bars (show bars?) not cool.
Run the comparo with a beat up ’89 LTD Crown Victoria with the same patination as the truck
In our collective mind’s eye, pickup trucks have always been designed for work, for hard manual labor, not for driving well-dressed folks to the Met Gala. Remember the TV commercials of our youth, the Bob Seger “Like a Rock” campaigns for Chevy, or the “Built Ford Tough” ones? In those commercials you’d see actual boulders being dropped into the bed of a brand-spankin’ new truck, which would then crawl down a dusty washboard road and scrape by a few cacti on its way to a mountaintop to get to the construction worksite. They’d show off the ability and utility of these trucks by beating them up when they had fewer than 50 miles on the odometer, just to show off how unpretentious and capable they were from new. Most cars aren’t marketed the same way that trucks are. Cars are meant to be sensible peoplemovers, or flashy speedsters, or headturning luxury cruisers. There’s an idealized vision associated with them. You don’t see Jeep Wranglers marketed as sensible grocery-getters, and the marketed use-case for pickup trucks reinforces the notion that if they’re scratched and dented and weathered, they’re not neglected but rather hardworking and unpretentious and being put to good use. And the cultural parallel of men’s appearance vs women’s appearance in western society is apt. We don’t idealize the looks of women-as-hardworking-archetypes, but instead the more “decorative” aspects. Our cultures don’t idealize the natural condition of the bodies of women that have borne and breastfed several children, but rather we idealize the barely postpubescent ones who have yet to do anything physically demanding. In that sense, yes, we look at a beat-up old truck the same way we’d look at, say, a 50-year-old Harrison Ford, or a 60-year-old Sean Connery, or a 70-year-old Cary Grant, even if those guys haven’t done a lick of hard work since their 20s. We see their wrinkles and scars and gray hair as signs of experience, hard-won wisdom, fights won and opponents bested and dangers survived, as if those faces were the actual characters they portrayed. And we look at an old Taurus wagon and we see, I dunno, Roseanne Barr, or Kathy Bates. Lots of trips picking up and dropping off kids and groceries, but no glamour, nor any sweaty adventures, just unassuming and uncomplaining and undervalued “women’s work” that half the world engages in every day and nobody wants to write a movie about.
Awesome write up I think you nailed it
The biggest flaw in your analogy is that I’d drive either of the Toyotas across the country without a second thought. I’d go over both the Fords first. And then I’d take one of the Toyotas.
It’s character. Real or imagined. Old trucks have it. Especially manuel shifted. (Sp but it works….). Taurus, Camry. Void of character (unless a SHO Taurus).
With the eclectic collective that JT owns, I’m sure this is obvious.
We need the truck to haul all the freedom we produce here in the U.S. of A. The Taurus simply won’t do.
I’ve noticed this too, but it doesn’t just apply to older vehicles. When someone spends $70,000 on a new pickup their friends and family will pat them on the back and endorse their wise decision of buying a wholesome, hard working vehicle. Let that same person spend half that amount on a coupe. Friends and family will whisper behind their back wondering when the hell they’re ever going to grow up?
I think of my pickup as a coupe with a very large trunk. It helps that it’s an extended cab with leather seats and flip out quarter windows
Counterpoint: the sedan would be cool as hell if it was an SHO. I still reflexively check each and every shitbox ’89-93 Taurus in the hopes that someone doesn’t know what they have and I can convince myself that it’s worth fabricating parts for.
Eh, who am I kidding–still one of my all time favorites, but wow, have they aged poorly. The only redeeming things is that glorious manifold, and it’s not visible. Probably wouldn’t even be able to open the hood on half of them these days.
I’m not 100% sure, but this might only be true for malaise era cars. A running bmw 2002 or 70’s muscle can get away with rough paint, body filler, etc. Beetles are a whole exemption of their own. And then there’s that Taurus in the pic. That’s no sedan sir. It is a WAGON, and therefore cool.
So I got my kid from practice, ten minutes each way, all the while looking for rough cars and trucks. Suburbs, not very gritty. Roughest sedan I saw was a dented and sticker coated first gen Prius. More environmental cred than a brand spanking new BEV in my book. Roughest truck was a tie between an about 15 year old Dodge/Ram with dents, oxidized paint that struck me as neglected and disreputable and a Nissan PU with a shell, lots of travel stickers and badly peeling paint on the hood that exuded a worn saddle vibe. I did see 3 old tercels that gave off an honest, hard worked, return on investment feel, but they were too well cared for to call rough.
A truck is always inherently useful, most full-size pickups are powerful, and even when worn-down and on their last legs, they, for some reason, have a purposeful and rugged look to them. The vintage regular cab short bed variety in particular is always seen as the best looking, even though it’s kind of a typecast truck with limited versatility.
This is not unlike Sam Elliot, Sean Connery, or John Wayne, all men that most women think aged like fine wine, even when everything that made them so handsome in their younger days had faded, and were primarly good at exactly one kind of role.
Then there’s most cars. The Art LeFleur or Jeffery Combs of the automotive world, if you will. While incredibly versatile and useful, but they lack whatever it is that makes the other three men I mentioned a movie star, and most people are only vaguely aware of what they can do even though these actors are far more capable than the three stars I mentioned before.
My entire driving life I owned two-door coupes or pickups until 2017, when I bought a Toyota 4Runner. It lacks that rugged handsomeness of a pickup, it lacks that sportiness of a coupe, but it makes up for that by being far more versatile than anything else I’ve ever owned, but to most, it’s just another SUV, and those that know me wonder when I’m going to get another pickup or coupe.
From now on, whenever I look at a Ford Taurus, all I will see is adult Macaulay Culkin.
I think this has to do with the status difference between something you choose to drive, and something you have to drive. Plenty of people keep a well-worn old work truck around for weekend projects and whatnot–for all anyone knows, your other car is a Toyota Century, complete with chauffeur, and you just like to get your hands dirty on weekends to remind yourself of your hardscrabble origins.
But you pull up in a busted old Taurus, it’s because you’re out of options.
I think there is something being overlooked here. These days a lot of car reviews go on about soft touch materials (or lack of) in interiors. Cars for decades have had everything from velour to squishy vinyl coverings and carpeting inside. Trucks, until recently, were pretty bare metal and rubber.
If I’m looking at getting in an old used vehicle, the ick factor comes into play. What’s embedded in these nasty materials? A good old bare metal truck interior just feels like it would disinfect so much better. I’m thinking these modern luxo trucks are just going to be gross as they age too and the difference won’t be there anymore.
Then again, truck drivers have probably done a lot more farting in their vehicles over the years.(citation needed).
Its sort of like the difference between a durable good and a consumable. A durable good like an old power tool may be a little sketchy but it probably still does the job. Sure the chop saw comes on when you plug it in and you have to unplug it to turn it off, but it still cuts and its foundation is worth enough to replace a switch eventually (true life story). A consumable like boots don’t really do much for you if your toes poke through and the sole flops around. Just buy new boots already…you don’t look cool, you look homeless.