I have been thinking about used trucks with an eye toward their unique capabilities, and one thing led to another as it always does. Here is something that directly impacts the relevant seasonal equation as we prepare to put away our straw hats, seersucker suits and white shoes, courtesy of the Old Farmer’s Almanac:
I just can’t do another one of those winters, and the prediction for the Old Dominion as Cold, Wet and White is not what I am looking for. So where does that leave a snow bird? Driving along the highways of the Great Midwest I could see them in their stately motor homes, lumbering along the roads with such imposing gravitas, even towing second automobiles.
When I was in Key West during the winter of our discontent with the Polar Vortex fronts whistling through Washington every two weeks, I saw that there was a mobile community of retirees parked at the beach at the Naval Air Station. I was intrigued then, and am more intrigued now, based on the prospect of another hard winter.
I looked into the concept. Apparently they come in distinct classes of vehicles. The bottom line of self-propelled motorhomes is the “Class C,” which are motorized (either gas or diesel) and are usually up to about 35′ in length. They have a driver compartment similar to a van with the RV body built behind. Often there is a bed above the cab (“cabover” bed.)
(Four Winds Class C motorhome).
The middle ground is termed “Class B,” or a camper van. The class has a lot to offer. They easier to drive than a big motorhome; usually get better miles per gallon; don’t require a toad (tow vehicle); AND you can park it in your driveway.
(The smooth curves of this Class B evoke the memories of the Airstream family of trailers, derived from the jigs that produced the B-29 Superforts of WWII).
In my mind, of course, nothing exceeds like excess and I was drawn to the Class A models:
(Monaco 45 Dynasty Motor Palace.)
Would that be a hoot? In the marvelous television show “Justified,” set in hard-scrabble Harlan County, Kentucky, middle-gangster Winn Duffy, played with malevolent glee by actor Jere Burns, lives in one like this in a variety of parking lots.
Here is the kind of lifestyle you can find in a Jayco Class A:
I am not sure I could keep a straight face and live in something like this. Could you? Where does the staff sleep?
Anyway, being my own bus driver comes with a laundry list of things I might (or might not) wish to do, and motoring in one of these probably would require towing a small car behind, making it the practical equivalent of being a traveling circus.
Still, as one alternate life-styler maintained adamantly: “I live on an acre of land in my fully-owned, Class A RV, with my own well water, for less than $500 a month, everything included. I spend about $300 month on food, gas up my hybrid once a month for only $30. I became a Minimalist after 9/11. Being a “Full-timer” in an RV is the best decision I’ve ever made.”
That is going a little further than I had contemplated, since I was mostly just concerned with snow avoidance. But the idea does have a certain minimalist attraction. But there might be a better way to explore the concept before putting all the retirement eggs in one “Class A” basket. I was looking at trucks, as I mentioned a moment ago.
Ruminating on the most popular vehicles in America, an alert car guy in Kalamazoo wrote to say: “The F series pick ups deserve their place as the best selling vehicle in the world for decades. As one of the hated “financial guys” at Ford, I can tell you that their financial genius and discipline is actually what gave it the great products and many years of business performance that exceeded all auto makers!”
In all our rambling around the great cars of the last century, we haven’t talked about the money that made it happen, and the financial genius that enabled Ford to survive the collapse of the industry in 2008 without government bail-out is another whole story, which would include the monetary sleight-of-hand that made Generous Motors originally a profitable concern, before it became a ward of the state. But that is a matter for another day, maybe a bleak winter one with a dusting of snow coming in and the engine block heater plugged in.
I was just looking at a truck that could haul a trailer, and get the hell out of here. This is what caught my eye this morning:
2010 F150 4X4, 29K on the odometer. It is capable of off-road autonomy, and could tow something like this retro baby, base price starting at $21 grand:
Come Thanksgiving, or should the Gales of November come early as they did to the ore-carrier Edmund Fitzgerald, this might be a place to spend a couple months living under a palm tree.
We’ll see. It might be fun. What did Nillson say about that? Go someplace where the weather suits our clothes?
Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303