From: sfisher@wsl.dec.com
Extended Road Test: 1971 Chevrolet Custom 10 Pickup truck
"You in a big hurry?" Andy asked over a buttermilk doughnut. Well,
I *did* have some ten or twelve hours of driving ahead of me, but...
"I think we should change the oil in the truck. I haven't changed
it since I bought it, and Jeff couldn't remember changing it when
he owned it --" That was convincing.
Not so! I changed the oil once per year, whether it needed it or not! And
I added oil regularly, which is almost as good as changing it, right? ;^}
The truck rides like, well, like a truck, its non-assisted steering
stiff and sloppy at the same time, its non-assisted brakes doing
an excellent job of slowing the truck. Mainly, though, I enjoyed
the motor. Oil pressure (with the new Castrol) was almost exactly
the same as the brand-new, 30-miles-on-the-odometer truck I'd
driven on the dealer's lot Tuesday night, 30 psi or so at idle and
45 or so at highway speed. But it felt strong enough to pull my
house to Reno and back.
That ride is one of the major selling features of that truck. And, in point
of fact, it has enough power to pull your whole BLOCK to Reno, sister!
This is the official technique for merging onto a crowded freeway
when you see a truck pulling a sports car on a trailer: You match
your speed exactly with the truck by matching its position as you
come up the on-ramp. You try to get the front wheels of your car
and the truck exactly parallel as you come to the last twenty feet
or so of the ramp. Then comes the tricky part: You have to *do
what the truck does* -- if the truck slows to let you in, you
slow to retain the geometric relationship. If the truck speeds up,
you have to speed up for the same reasons.
Gee, I never had that problem....Just shift down to second, and floor it.
When the fist sized secondaries of that Quadrajet roar and the nose lifts
about 2 inches and your head jerks back, you'd be surprised how fast the fear
of Detroit and visions of the final scene of "Easy Rider" come into the heads
of the average Jetta Driver.
But didn't you feel your brain deteriorating from the moment you stepped
into that truck? I dunno about you, but when I drove it, I'd start
drawling and say things like "Dome much matter tuh-mee what chall won-do
withthat-thar Yugo, Ah'm a-parking here...."
A fine truck, indeed!
JZ
--
"I will not raise your taxes"
- George Bush, 1988
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