Trucks — Blog — Healy Chen

A truck when you need it

I don’t always buy furniture (my room is tiny), but when I do, I lament the fact I don’t have a proper vehicle to transport anything big. The tiny backseats of a BMW M2 may fold down, but the trunk aperture is so narrow that I can’t even fit a typical office task chair through the opening. I get why SUVs and trucks are so popular: you may only need the carrying capacity maybe once or twice a year, but damn if it isn’t handy when you do need to ferry something huge.

So instead going to grab the new couch from IKEA directly, I paid for shipping like a rich person who can’t be bothered to waste time like that. Admittedly it sucks to pay for any shipping at all when I am so used to free shipping on even the bulkiest items from Amazon (100 pound television set is just fine and free). But I wouldn’t buy staple furniture pieces on Amazon: no way I’m plopping down thousands of dollars on an item I’m presumably keeping for decades without first laying eyes and butt on it.

Speaking of IKEA, it is opening up a store in San Francisco soon. The problem is, the location is on Market St. downtown right near the twitter headquarters. Also known as drug-dealing central to us locals. The Whole Foods nearby just announced it’s shutting down (after grand opening less than one year) due to the deteriorating conditions in the surrounding area, and the rampant theft that occurs daily. Unless San Francisco starts actually enforcing those type of quality-of-life laws, there’s no way an IKEA store will last very long there.

There’s also the issue of parking downtown. I guess that particular IKEA store won’t be selling too many bulky items. From the outside there doesn’t seem to be any space at all for the typical monolithic parking structure. How are people going to load their Billy bookcases? It’ll be interesting to see. I for one will continue to go to the store in East Palo Alto. That is, when I’m not buying something too large.

Truck town USA

Full-size trucks in America are big business. The venerable Ford F-150 is the best selling vehicle in this country for well over two decades. The GM and Ram trucks also sell in very lucrative numbers. It’s a head-scratcher from my perspective here in San Francisco. I would never buy one of these behemoths in our area of narrow streets and scarcely little parking space. Imagine parallel parking a modern four-door pickup truck; I’m not sure one would even fit in one of the city’s metered spaces.

I get the appeal of trucks, though. It’s literally one vehicle to do absolutely everything. The typical “crew-cab” four-door configuration can seat five people with space and comfort rivaling large sedans. The high-seating position is easy to get in and out of. The pickup bed needs no explanation for its utility. Four-wheel drive version of trucks can go off-road with the best of sport-utility-vehicles, provided the trail has the width for these super wide machines. If parking weren’t ever a problem anywhere I normally frequent, a full-size truck would definitely be something to consider.

This past weekend I was up north of Sacramento in the rural town of Calusa. I was amazed at the sheer amount of trucks there. It seems everyone in town is driving a half-ton, crew-cab pickup, about 80 percent of all vehicle traffic to my eyes. The lone Ford dealership in Calusa has an inventory of mostly F-150s! Surely a confirmation of pickup truck’s popularity in those parts.

And why wouldn’t it be? Parking is wide and freely available there. Calusa is a farming community, so the trucks are actually being used to haul stuff. The 4X4 systems will take care of any beaten path with ease. From what I can tell, these people own trucks not for some machismo image, but rather they truly need the utility of these type of vehicles. I can dig it.