"jimmying"

[Mike Salovesh]

Bob Haas wrote:
>
> Mike,
>
> GM has marketed trucks under the marque "GMC," so that I've no doubt that
> you remember a pickup truck.  When I was younger (much) I remember my
> granddad driving a GMC one-ton truck on the farm, as well as pickups, and
> the GMC variation on the Chevy Blazer.  I remember these especially b/c I
> was working as a "maintenance engineer" for Southern Bell at the time.  The
> fleet of trucks that I would gas and oil was made up of converted Chevy and
> GMC trucks, but I especially remember the big SUV's--Suburbans and the GMC
> take on it.  I'm pretty satisfied that GMC still markets all types of
> trucks, and I'll ditto you on the "Jimmy" name for their contemporary SUV.
>
> Trucks is good.

Bob:

I suppose trucks is good, but only if you'll admit a disclaimer.  Trucks
is good when they're used for trucking jobs and driven by somebody who
knows how.

SUVs look like they started life as trucks, but somebody tried to make
them into crosses between Macho Man and the neighhborhood wimp. . .  I'm
saying the designers are some kind of oxymorons.  Unfortunately, they
have managed to capture the popular image-ination.

A vehicle that carries the driver's briefcase as the only passenger,
does all its miles within the limits of a major city, comes on a truck
frame with a monster engine, and is equipped with 4-wheel drive and a
winch adds up to a horrible case of road-overkill.  Add air conditioning
and Dolby Surround Sound and you get yet another demonstration that
mutual interaction ends up with pets and their owners looking like each
other.

In the case of the typical SUV, both truck and owner could serve as
demonstration models for schizophrenic dementia.

Putting the average driver in control of 4WD is like handing out loaded
pistols in kindergarden. In any situation where four wheel drive is
necessary, the average driver would be lots better off sending for a tow
truck.

Here I speak as somebody who has driven through a lot of Midwestern
winters. Once you learn how to get where you're going through sleet,
ice, and snow without being a menace to yourself and others, you learn
not to drive into some place where only 4WD and a winch are going to get
you out.

I guess purely city folk just haven't learned that if a job calls for a
truck, there's no sense sending out a vehicle that tries to imitate the
smoothness and comfort of your living room.  Sure, SUVs are muscle
trucks: they're for people with muscles where they should have brains.
But SUV's are like nearly all hybrid tools: if you try to design one
tool so it can do two totally different kinds of jobs, you're probably
going to end up with a tool that does a half-assed job no matter what
you try to do with it.

-- mike salovesh         <salovesh at niu.edu>           PEACE !!!

P.S.: But don't you dare try to deprive me of my Swiss Army knife or my
Leatherman MultiTool!