A touch faded.........but still in use by the look of it. Nicely taken Diane.

A velvety coating of oxidation, eh? There seem to be hundreds of these old codgers in use around here. Thanks, Keith!

Much smaller than the contemporary version of the same truck...

Absolutely dwarfed by the massive F350, too! They seem to get bigger and bigger, and most men here put big tires on them. I call them Lords of the Parking Lot! ;-b

I was in North Florida (part of the South, not like the rest of Florida) for two weeks and saw lots of those, with big tires and mufflers tuned to be very loud. Seems like there's lots of men with threatened masculinity these days...

Yes, indeed, and that will get way worse, I predict. Here, there is some technique that makes copious exhaust that is black as coal. It's legal, for some reason. I've seen it several times, always on a big pickup truck. My grandson told me about it and said it doesn't change the exhaust any other way, it's only for macho display. Still, hard to believe that a cloud of black exhaust does no harm. He scoffs as much as I do.

Glad to hear he scoffs at it. Mucking with the environmental controls is probably illegal, but it seems that no one (including California) enforces those sorts of laws any more. I agree, I fear we're going in the wrong direction on this stuff.

Your fear is well-founded, there are reasons for it in the headlines everyday.