You are beautiful to me

It is a different kind of attraction. Or admiration, if you really want to be specific!

And I am not sure when it is exactly that you go over the edge. Its appearance is by no means pretty. It is squarish, front heavy and awkwardly tall to mount. The door is likely to squeak when you open it and your climb in is by no means graceful. Even when you settle in, you are instantly met with large steering wheel, dirt laden instrument cluster and vague sense of excessive room between you and the passenger seat. It certainly takes getting used too.

Things seem worse when you start the engine. There are some attempts to damp the harshness of those V-8 vibrations but they are best not spoken about. There is a slight but distinct rumble inside the passenger cabin as you sit high up looking over the stubby front hood.

As I said before, you don’t know when, but you eventually begin to love it. All its faults and all its idiocracies; Perhaps it is when you don’t stop for roadblocks. It is the adventurous ability to lock the center differential to achieve equal torque distribution to traverse 30% grades. Or the capacity to just thump its way over loose gravel and even rocks with its broad chested skid plates.

When you scratch the paint, you don’t wince, but you feel proud. Nor do you ease your payload in the truck bed but instead you slam it in. The leaf spring solid axle creaks meekly at gross vehicle weight but you simply hop in and drive off.

It is perhaps America’s greatest gift to the automotive world. It is a love affair that is only experienced when you lock the differential and run through a gravel trap.

It is the quintessential American pick up truck.