Thanks Henry

There is no doubt about it. We, the American culture making machinery, have been so successful at making car culture a hit, that despite the overwhelming evidence that our love of all things bearing four wheels is actually killing us, we motor on. Not wanting to sound conspiratorial, please consider before we engage the manual tranny and get rubber, the effect our love affair with our rides has produced over, say, the last century. In 1919 Henry Ford was King of the automobile, producing a robust (for the time) 500,000 Model T cars, all of them black and selling for $500, or $7,400 adjusting for inflation today. I’ll take two please!

WWI, our exploration of the mysterious suburban landscape, rises in the standards of living (including the phenomena known as keeping up with the Joneses), new business resulting from the new logistic capability to move product fast and inexpensively, consumer credit, and my personal favorite, the introduction of new leisure activities, all came as a direct result of the freedom the car now represented to a new America on the move. Those are the pros.

The cons, as we are now witnessing, are in pollution, global warming, industry obsessed with the obscene profits almost guaranteed by our thirst for mobility, up to and including world war, and the vile dismissal of alternative energy forms that could easily reduce our fossil fuel habit altogether by the two-headed monster of government and the oil industry. It has been suggested, and I agree, that the USA is an oil company with an army. As I write this our ‘leadership’ is mounting the case for another war with the worlds leading oil producer. I wonder why. 

We are victims of our own success. We have, by our demand for bigger, better, faster and more powerful cars, supplied the auto/oil/insurance/ military alliance with ample reason to feed our addiction. As a quick example, last week I posted about the beautiful luxury camping rigs currently available at Vandoit.com, where for a mere $90,000 I could own one. I actually plotted and contrived a tactic to game the purchase. The fact that they get about 10mpg and insurance would set me back about $129/mo was a secondary consideration to the quality of life value that would surely follow me off the lot. 

With all of this as a 500 word lede, it is with bittersweet melancholy that today I will sell (most likely) the 2003 Ranger that has served me so well since 2014. Five years and 66,000 miles. No incidents and lotsa fun and work inevitably associated and assigned to the neighborhood hack with a pickup. 

It has been a good ride. I will be sad to see it drive down the lane with a new owner. 

Thanks Henry.