Well now, we've got two of those.
Contestant #1 is a 1974 Ford 1 ton. She's a faded red old gal with under 100,000 miles (yep, she never converted to metric). Kind of handy though because Honey outfitted her flatdeck with removable sides so you can haul cattle, horses or grain with her. Pull the sides off and you can set two round bales on her and hook a haywagon to pull five more in off the fields. The downside is that she's rougher than a rubbydub at happy hour - armstrong steering and barely any brakes. She's Honey's truck, and he has no problems with her, but I'm afraid that if I drive her for too many more years I'll look like Arnold Schwartzachick - what with the bulging biceps he's got from steering the "Chick Magnet".
Contestant #2 also doubles as our family vehicle. A '94 GMC 4x4 crew cab one ton with a 454 under the hood. She's got well over 400,000 km on the odometer, and last year she got some TLC with a rebuilt engine and tranny, but she's worth her considerable weight in gold. Invested in a gooseneck hitch for her, and she hauls the majority of the stock, horses, and hay. Heck, I've even used her to haul frozen newborns from the barn to the house to warm them up - just haul that frosty baby into the back seat and set back and let the old girl plow through the drifts to the yard, and we use her to chase the liners down to Clyde to see the calves unload at the auction mart every fall...the kids read their Archie comics while"Big Momma"purrs down the black(or usually given the time of year) white top. Only downfall is she goes through gasoline like my ex-husband went through beer - chug-a-lug! Oh, yeah, and I've never had a vehicle that loves to go into a skid like her....winter driving is all about stuffing her in nuetral and coasting precariously to a stop while feathering the brakes...last year Honey had a big learning curve with her when he failed to remember the ol' nuetral trick and jack-knifed my stock trailer into the rear of the cab (thank God that trailer was empty and so was the oncoming lane). Spent the next four weeks climbing in and out of the passenger door to drive her until the body shop had an opening to fix her. But I've had her longer than I've known Honey, so just had to fix her up and get her back on the road. One thing about her, with our big combined family with six kids between the two of us, it's a good thing she's a crew cab, otherwise we'd be looking for a school bus to get around in...Darn BSE has made me put off the new coat of paint I'd hoped to give her though. Oh well, maybe some day. At least she hasn't got much rust yet.
Enough babbling. ;-) Take care.
[/img][/
