The Story of the Big Black Ford Truck

I’m barely 5’3”, weigh 110 pounds soaking wet, dress in expensive suits and spend a fortune at the hairdresser every month. So when people see me driving my big black shiny Ford Explorer SportTrac, their mouths fall open. Every time.

Maybe it’s the bright red and orange racing stripes down the side.

Everyone wants an explanation. How does the studious daughter of an urbane Princeton University grad fall in love with a big black truck?

I can hear them thinking: “Naw…reeeeaaalllly?? You?”

No one believes me when I tell them how much I love rugged vehicles. They wait for the part about some boyfriend or another buying my truck for me. But it didn’t happen that way.

I’ve always liked interesting cars. My first car was a Rover, my second an MG Midget. My first brand new vehicle purchase was a red Toyota pickup truck. I had it for five years and 80,000 miles and it never once broke down.

When I became a mom, pregnant with the Teenager-formerly-known-as-Pumpkin, I decided to buy the first sensible car of my entire adult life. A powder blue Toyota Corolla.

I hated that car.

And so did the universe.

I was rear-ended in it no less than six times and t-boned by a red light runner. Sadly, I’d leased the dang thing, so I had to wait the full FIVE #@!$%^$# YEARS of the lease before I could dump it. (And I still had to pay $5000 to get out of the deal. Grrrr.)

Few days in my life were happier than when I bought a used red Toyota 4Runner and named it “Big Red” after a quarterhorse my family once owned. I drove off the dealer’s lot and onto the freeway and, instead of trying to run me over, other drivers slowed down to wave me into traffic. SLOWED down. I swore I’d never own a sensible car again.

Big Red marked the beginning of my rock climbing era. Four-wheel drive, a backend big enough for four people’s climbing gear, room left over for a week’s worth of food and reliability bar none. My partners and I drove Red all over Colorado, Wyoming, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Texas, Arizona and California. When the Teenager was still small enough to be called Pumpkin, we took Red camping and slept in the back when it rained. I went from liking interesting cars to loving Big Red.

Six years and 120,000 miles later, it was finally time to sell Big Red. He looked weathered and each new repair cost more than the last. I checked Blue Book and priced Red a generous $8000, figuring I’d have to drop to $7500. Instead, a bidding war ensued at 6 a.m. in our sleepy little suburb, and I sold Red for $9500.

I’d discovered another fabulous feature of owning interesting cars. When you sell them you get CASH!

And I learned something about myself, too. Big ‘ol fat salty tears rolled down my cheeks when I handed the keys to Big Red’s new owner. Waved at Big Red as he drove away.

Thought about Big Red for days. Years actually. Even after I bought a Jeep Wrangler.

I like to think of the Wrangler as my transitional boyfriend. I loved the Wrangler, too…but never quite as much as Big Red. And have you ever driven a Wrangler across the Mohave desert in 120 degree heat? Not, not, NOT a good idea.

Just three years later, the newly minted Teenager and I drove the Wrangler to a dealer’s lot with every intention of trading it for a Ford Explorer SUV. But an Explorer with a sunroof (a requirement after the Wrangler) was out of my price range.

Discouraged, we turned to leave. And then, we saw it: A big black shiny Ford Explorer SportTrac with bright red and orange racing stripes and a sunroof. I looked at the Teenager. The Teenager looked at me. We both nodded.

A new love affair was born and Black Beauty (named after a race horse in a book I read as a young girl) became ours. We drove him all over. Showed him off to my parents and to the Teenager's best friend. Hung an American flag in the slot for the front license plate (after all, he's a Ford).

Dad-Who-Would-Be-Outlaw is a fanatic for all things on wheels, so I called him the next day. He asked, “Did you sleep in it last night?”

How did he know?