I Love My Common-Cab Pickup, however Let’s Face It, It is No Household Automobile

From the December 2022 problem of Automobile and Driver.

There I used to be with the wind speeding previous, the starlit sky above, the air alive with the delicate thrum of a V-8 on a heat autumn night time. Was I driving a Mustang convertible? One thing fancier, like a Mercedes SL? Nope. I used to be within the mattress of my 2003 Dodge pickup, questioning the place all of it went fallacious.

There is a distinction between using within the mattress of a truck for enjoyable and using there since you should. I used to be within the latter camp due to my very own choices—specifically, my silly devotion to the regular-cab pickup. Ours is a household of 4, and the Ram seats three. When these unforgiving info collide, the man who purchased the truck will get to expertise the nice outside whereas listening to his spouse slipping the clutch a bit an excessive amount of (however not with the ability to say something about it on account of being, technically, cargo).

After I purchased the Ram, it did not happen to me that its three-seat, regular-cab structure was something aside from superior. Everyone seems to be driving a four-door truck, however not me. I am an iconoclast with my bench seat and guide transmission. A purist. And if that results in occasional inconvenience, that is the worth of artwork. The artwork, on this case, being a third-gen Ram with clear-coat that appears prefer it was utilized at Chernobyl Reactor 4.

Repeatedly I’ve prioritized my nebulous sense of automotive greatness over practicality, or affordability, or reliability, or security, or gas financial system, or consolation, or refinement, or resale worth, or having the inside switches labeled in English. I am actually effectively acquainted with the view from the highest of the petard, so many instances have I been hoisted. Within the mid-’90s, I used to be the one individual I knew with a cellphone. And I wanted it due to my dumb automobiles.

Complications pertaining to car selections usually stem from considered one of two conditions: Both your automobile is sensible however unreliable, or it is dependable however impractical. Of my prior automobiles, Saabs largely populate the primary class, and our E36 M3 convertible epitomizes the second. I bear in mind telling my spouse, “If we have to carry loads of stuff, this automobile has infinite vertical cargo room when the highest’s down.”

Our Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid is ultra-practical and dependable. However a current fender bender despatched it right into a weekslong parts-sourcing purgatory at a physique store. We borrowed my sister-in-law’s similar Pacifica till she was impolite sufficient to ask for it again, at which level the Ram assumed an outsize function in our lives. On a typical day, I would drive my youthful child to high school, return to take the older child and a classmate to high school, then decide up my spouse and drive her to work. Ha, who wants a again seat? You must stay that regular-cab life to grasp the joys of efficient passenger-management logistics.

However in the end, you want to drive someplace with 4 individuals. Or 5. Or seven. Then you definately’re ruing your life selections because the plastic Ram mattress liner brand imprints in your backbone. Throughout this time of travail, my father-in-law provided to mortgage us his Saturn Sky Crimson Line, which has two seats and trunk area for one set of golf golf equipment, assuming the course options windmills and fiberglass volcanoes. Whoever advisable he get such a factor? Oh, proper.

Naturally, I steered we purchase one other automobile, however my spouse disagreed {that a} 2003 Chevy Blazer ZR2 with 238,000 miles was the answer to anyone’s issues. As a substitute, I ordered a Pacifica headlight on eBay to expedite the restore so we might return the Ram to its rightful function as a specialised fringe participant.

Which, as I write this, has but to occur. I believe again to after I purchased the truck. Standing within the proprietor’s driveway, I requested why he was promoting such a scrumptious machine. He gestured at an extended-cab Tundra by his storage and mentioned, “I wanted a again seat.” I ponder when he realized that. I guess he remembers what the climate was like that day.