American icon on wheels
traffic in firearms, has largely reduced the gun rack to a garage sale item.
Although foreign truck manufacturers have forced their stateside competitors to pay more attention to fuel economy and vehicle dependability, “Buy American!” still resonates in the pickup marketplace. Significant differences in overall production levels notwithstanding, it is striking that Ford sold nearly twice as many F-Series pickups last year as all of the leading Japanese heavy and mid-size pickup truck models sold combined.
Marketing experts think it is no coincidence that potential buyers are reminded periodically that Ford was the only major automaker to refuse federal bailout funds during the last recession.
If the pickup truck is deeply ingrained in our national life and culture, like America itself, it has been and remains many things to many people. For generations born on the farm, it may summon classically bittersweet nostalgia. For others, it has been a metaphor both for unvarnished rusticity and a laid-back middle-class existence.