Good morning! Today we’re looking at old trucks. Not classic trucks, nor anything you’d want to drive daily, but scruffy, nasty, beat-up old trucks that get terrible mileage but will haul whatever you need, without worry of scratching the paint. Think street-legal wheelbarrows.
Yesterday was all about beat-up commuter cars, and I expected the vote to be close because the cars were pretty similar. The Avalon took home a narrow win, but I don’t think you could go wrong with either one.
The disparity in mileage, and interior condition, between these two is what makes the difference for me. Yes, Toyotas “run forever,” but after a while the niceness gets eroded away and you’re left with a listless lump of a car that’s just going through the motions. And yes, GM plastic isn’t the sturdiest stuff in the world, but it all looks intact on that Bonneville, and I wouldn’t feel like I needed gloves to touch the steering wheel. Make mine the Pontiac.
Now then: Ever since we moved, I have been giving my old truck a workout. It doesn’t get driven every day, but every time it does get driven, it’s hauling stuff. There is just so much to go get when you move into a new house, especially one with essentially no landscaping like ours. My wife’s Yukon has hauled its share of things home as well, but when we needed to bring home half a dozen apple trees to plant in the back yard, or a pair of seven-foot-tall bookcases, it wasn’t much help, and the big green Chevy came to the rescue. Sometimes you just need a big ol’ truck, and if you’re anything like me, you don’t want to rent one every time you need it. It makes sense to have something there, parked in the side yard, ready to do what needs doing. Here are a couple of good prospects.
2000 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 – $2,000
Engine/drivetrain: 5.3 liter overhead valve V8, four-speed automatic, part-time 4WD
Location: Ballard, WA
Odometer reading: 167,000 miles
Operational status: “Purrs like a kitten”
The first thing I noticed about this truck is that, while it’s in Washington state, it wears Alaska plates. I’ve never been to Alaska, and in fact all I know about it I learned from Northern Exposure, but I seem to remember that damn near everyone in that show drove a beat-up Chevy truck. (Except Maurice, of course.) I take that to be a good omen for this truck.
This isn’t just any old Chevy truck, though; it’s a GMT800, the truck that took the near-perfect GMT400 series and somehow improved on it. It’s powered by a 5.3-liter version of the Gen III Chevy small-block, colloquially known as the LS, and GM’s often-maligned but generally pretty damn durable 4L60-E automatic. This one also has shift-on-the-fly 4WD. The seller says it “purrs like a kitten,” and I believe it; with only 167,000 miles, this thing is just getting broken in.
This is an extended-cab truck, with a pair of “suicide” doors for access to the rear seats. GMT800 interiors hold up better than the GMT400s did, and this one still looks pretty good. I’m sure some of the plastic stuff is broken, and I bet it has its share of electrical gremlins, but I also bet it’s still mighty comfy.
Outside, it’s beat-up and a little rusty around the edges, and of course it has that one mismatched door. But who cares? The mechanical core is sound, and the bed still holds stuff, and that’s the important part. Pretty trucks are only for people who don’t know how to do stuff.
1992 Ford F-250 XLT – $2,200
Engine/drivetrain: 5.8-liter overhead valve V8, four-speed automatic, RWD
Location: Stanwood, WA
Odometer reading: 259,000 miles
Operational status: “Starts every time and goes right along”
Before the GMT-series Chevy trucks, and Ford’s “jellybean” F-series, all three of Detroit’s big three held on to their truck designs for a long time. This style of Ford truck debuted in 1992, but the basic design dates all the way back to 1980, and hung on until 1997. This is the F-250, the precursor to today’s Super Duty trucks, a burly 3/4 ton beast of burden with an extended cab and a full eight-foot bed. In other words, you’d better level up your parallel parking skills.
The F-250 was available with two different gasoline V8s: a 5.8 liter version of Ford’s Windsor V8, and a big-block 7.5 liter. The ad doesn’t say which one this is, but it looks like a 5.8 from what I can see. The big block is usually a selling point anyway, so the ad would have mentioned it. This truck has a lot of miles, but the seller says it starts right up and runs great.
It’s an XLT, so it has the “nice” interior. It’s holding up well, especially for that many miles. I’m trying to figure out what the tangle of black stuff on the floor is: a cargo net, maybe? If anyone has a better suggestion, please say so in the comments.
It’s a little scruffy outside, but in a good way. These trucks wear their patina well. And of course, it’s a two-tone. Ford trucks of this style should all be two-tone.
I would never suggest that either of these be used as daily transportation. They’re old, rough, inefficient, and probably not as reliable as they once were. But they’re also cheap to buy, cheap to insure, and if you’ve got the space to park one, easy to just keep around for when you need it. One’s got 4WD, the other has a little more capacity. Either one would make a great yard tool. The choice is yours.
(Image credits: Craigslist sellers)
Ford. For a dump hauler an 8ft bed and no 4WD is just fine. That spidery thing on the floor is a spider strap bed tie down I believe.
Those old 90’s fords seem to be absolutely worthless now, and coincidentally there’s a lot for sale up here at the moment. Hmmmmm…