Whatever happened to the thousand-dollar pickup trucks?

I always heard that if you want to write, you should write about something you know. Sounds reasonable. My knowledge, as many would agree, is somewhat limited, but I did spend a good deal of my time in the car business. I didn’t plan it that way; it just happened. My father was a GM dealer in Swainsboro for nearly twenty years, and he welcomed me, or should I say strongly encouraged me, to join him in that business. You can find all manner of “interesting” folks in the automobile business. There are all types of characters and personalities. One type you will not find, however, is the shy and retiring car salesman. I have known some of the best people you would ever want to meet while in the car business, but let’s be honest, car salesmen can be a little pushy or a little impatient. Sometimes, they can be a little too helpful or a little too courteous, but I never, ever knew one who lasted more than a month or so who was shy and retiring. Car salesmen are entertainers, or at least part-time entertainers, and they have a personality and a special language to go with that. For example, if you have shaky credit, they might refer to you as “an upside downer”, or “Aquaman” cause you are in so deep on your car loan or a “dream-chaser”. However, if you have a decent down payment and an average credit score, you are “puffy” and “strong as bear’s breath.” Your trade-in might also be described as a “puff” or “right outa the wrapper”. If it’s “knee-deep in rubber” that of course means, it’s got good tires. If the a/c works, then “it’s colder than a mother-in-law’s love”, if the paint is still good, it’s so slick a fly couldn’t land on it, and if the engine runs smooth it’s “like a cat walking on cotton”. You didn’t realize car people were such poets, did you? It’s a strange language, but that’s how car people talk, especially when your trade-in, which is now being appraised by the wholesale guy (who looks like he has spent too many days on the road and too many nights at car auctions) is getting graded. Anyway, when the final number is totaled up, one last comment has the power to put your old car smack dab in the winner’s circle. “She’s got eyes”. That’s the magic phrase! If you hear that coming from the wholesale guy, you know you just hit the jackpot, and the old family car still has that intangible quality of that special something that means she’s “still got it”.

When I left the new car business, I spent 25 years on the used car side. That was the most enjoyable time to me because buying a good used car or truck gave my customers another option to paying the ridiculous prices and yearly increases that GM, Ford, Chrysler and the United Auto Workers union forced on the car-buying public. In the mid-1980s, I sold a brand-new base model GMC pickup to a very “frugal” older farmer for a little over $3,300.00. That sounds unbelievable today, because now that truck would cost more than TEN times that amount. In 2004, I sold that same farmer’s grandson a used truck for $1,000.00. It was far from perfect, but at age 16 he loved it. It represented real value, and back then you could find thousand-dollar pickups all the time. Obviously, that was a very different world. Now, our economy is struggling to work its way back from a pandemic and the mismanaged Biden economic response to it. It is time to move on. There is no need to keep giving away “recovery money” or “rescue money” or any other government supported programs to cities or corporations or anybody else in the name of “saving our economy”. This economy can save itself, if just left alone by the Democrats. Yet, in spite of that, retailers and manufacturers in this country are still taking advantage and still coming up with artificial excuses to raise prices on everything we buy. Inflation brought on by Biden’s 4 trillion-dollar covid relief program is again headed back up. So is gas and energy. The USA is the second largest producer of Liquified Natural Gas in the world. Yet to satisfy the climate activists, Biden issued an executive order back in January stopping the production and export of LNG to our allies in Europe which forces them to buy Russian gas and thereby bankrolling Putin’s war on Ukraine. At some point, the old tin can that has been kicked and kicked will come to the end of the road, and the fiscal health and political conscience of this nation will have to have a reconciliation. When that time comes, I hope the spirit, discipline, and the backbone of the type demonstrated by that frugal old farmer of forty years ago is still around. I have a strong feeling we are going to need it. In the meantime, if you find a good thousand-dollar pickup around anywhere, let me know. I’m in the market.

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