Nothing Special Posted July 30 Share Posted July 30 My wife (who refuses to drive Darth because "it's too big") wants an Escalade, go figure! I'm not going to try to figure out why anyone wants an Escalade, but I sure get thinking a crew cab long box dually is too big while just about any other fill size truck might not be. The crew cab is about 2' shorter, and having the rear fenders stick out proud of the cab is pretty intimidating to most people who go through fast-food or bank drive-thrus. Those are significant differences. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
85lebaront2 Posted July 30 Share Posted July 30 My wife (who refuses to drive Darth because "it's too big") wants an Escalade, go figure! I'm not going to try to figure out why anyone wants an Escalade, but I sure get thinking a crew cab long box dually is too big while just about any other fill size truck might not be. The crew cab is about 2' shorter, and having the rear fenders stick out proud of the cab is pretty intimidating to most people who go through fast-food or bank drive-thrus. Those are significant differences. My first wife (died the end of 2005) drove Darth with no problems, even drove him with our 5th wheel hooked up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mat in tn Posted July 31 Share Posted July 31 My first wife (died the end of 2005) drove Darth with no problems, even drove him with our 5th wheel hooked up. my first wife had delusions of grandeur. no vehicle was good enough if her sister had a more expensive one. my opinion (spread liberally) was "I don't care what your sister drives". and I don't even like the jones's. let them keep up with me! I sure won the lottery with my second wife though. introduced to me by my first wife yet I will leave that saga for another time. She wants a reliable car with fair economy. that's all. when I brought home my excursion, she said she's not driving it. too big. she drove it. but I had to park it in the driveway as she was not going to risk hitting my trucks. then I bought her a Saab 9-3. she loved that car. a simple understated, very comfortable rocket. we would have kept it, but electrical gremlins showed up so I made someone a deal on it who said he could fix them. now she has her Camry. and does not mind putting car seats in it for the grandkids. btw, none of these were new cars! we don't do that! even though I like the idea of reliability there is no guarantee beyond support with an issue. new cars are a suckers bet. all those people are in debt up to their eyeballs. and the few not in debt are still turning dollars into pennies. dealerships are like casinos, the house always wins! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danny G Posted July 31 Share Posted July 31 As much as I am a Ford truck guy, for Van/SUV, I would go elsewhere. Van is Chrysler/Honda, but definitely not Toyota.. wish Ford did vans. "/> Soooo.... Found this guy about 90 minutes away. My wife was like what is that... And I was like a Bullnose Vantruck. https://forum.garysgaragemahal.com/file/n158206/1000005086.jpg https://forum.garysgaragemahal.com/file/n158206/Screenshot_20240730_012619_Facebook.jpg 302 under the hood FYI if anyone is interested lol. Talking to the owner now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danny G Posted July 31 Share Posted July 31 my first wife had delusions of grandeur. no vehicle was good enough if her sister had a more expensive one. my opinion (spread liberally) was "I don't care what your sister drives". and I don't even like the jones's. let them keep up with me! I sure won the lottery with my second wife though. introduced to me by my first wife yet I will leave that saga for another time. She wants a reliable car with fair economy. that's all. when I brought home my excursion, she said she's not driving it. too big. she drove it. but I had to park it in the driveway as she was not going to risk hitting my trucks. then I bought her a Saab 9-3. she loved that car. a simple understated, very comfortable rocket. we would have kept it, but electrical gremlins showed up so I made someone a deal on it who said he could fix them. now she has her Camry. and does not mind putting car seats in it for the grandkids. btw, none of these were new cars! we don't do that! even though I like the idea of reliability there is no guarantee beyond support with an issue. new cars are a suckers bet. all those people are in debt up to their eyeballs. and the few not in debt are still turning dollars into pennies. dealerships are like casinos, the house always wins! You know one of my favorite small cars is 80 model VW Jettas/rabbits with the 1.6/1.9L diesel. I got my hands on a beat up one in Texas for $800 in 2011 and drove it to work all the time. I got like 40-52mpg. I could never fill it up all the way because the neck leaked and only the driver wiper worked lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
viven44 Posted July 31 Share Posted July 31 As much as I am a Ford truck guy, for Van/SUV, I would go elsewhere. Van is Chrysler/Honda, but definitely not Toyota.. wish Ford did vans. "/> Soooo.... Found this guy about 90 minutes away. My wife was like what is that... And I was like a Bullnose Vantruck. https://forum.garysgaragemahal.com/file/n158206/1000005086.jpg https://forum.garysgaragemahal.com/file/n158206/Screenshot_20240730_012619_Facebook.jpg 302 under the hood FYI if anyone is interested lol. Talking to the owner now. I have a colleague who has a very original 78 1/2 ton van that he acquired as a project. It has a 351W (yes a Windsor, not a modified).. he wants to prep it for a sale. Maybe I should consider buying it. Its very interesting that the vans used a mix of a bunch of truck parts. The gauge cluster and some of the interiors was dentside style all the way until late 80s.. front end was bullnose.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArdWrknTrk Posted July 31 Share Posted July 31 As much as I am a Ford truck guy, for Van/SUV, I would go elsewhere. Van is Chrysler/Honda, but definitely not Toyota.. wish Ford did vans. "/> Soooo.... Found this guy about 90 minutes away. My wife was like what is that... And I was like a Bullnose Vantruck. https://forum.garysgaragemahal.com/file/n158206/1000005086.jpg https://forum.garysgaragemahal.com/file/n158206/Screenshot_20240730_012619_Facebook.jpg 302 under the hood FYI if anyone is interested lol. Talking to the owner now. That may be a WEE BIT underpowered! 😉 But if your church is broke and you only need to drive it 20 miles, slowly, on Sunday mornings... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nothing Special Posted July 31 Share Posted July 31 I have a colleague who has a very original 78 1/2 ton van that he acquired as a project. It has a 351W (yes a Windsor, not a modified).. he wants to prep it for a sale. Maybe I should consider buying it. Its very interesting that the vans used a mix of a bunch of truck parts. The gauge cluster and some of the interiors was dentside style all the way until late 80s.. front end was bullnose.... Yeah, Ford started putting the 351W in vans while they were still using the 360 and 390 FE engines in the pickups. When they switched away from the FEs in pickups they didn't have the capacity on the Windsor line to keep up with car and van needs while adding the pickups. As I recall they modified the Cleveland engine and line to make the pickup motors, hence 351M. A few years later cars weren't using many V8s anymore and the Windsor line could keep up, so they dropped the poorly executed 351M. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArdWrknTrk Posted July 31 Share Posted July 31 I have a colleague who has a very original 78 1/2 ton van that he acquired as a project. It has a 351W (yes a Windsor, not a modified).. he wants to prep it for a sale. Maybe I should consider buying it. Its very interesting that the vans used a mix of a bunch of truck parts. The gauge cluster and some of the interiors was dentside style all the way until late 80s.. front end was bullnose.... Yeah, Ford started putting the 351W in vans while they were still using the 360 and 390 FE engines in the pickups. When they switched away from the FEs in pickups they didn't have the capacity on the Windsor line to keep up with car and van needs while adding the pickups. As I recall they modified the Cleveland engine and line to make the pickup motors, hence 351M. A few years later cars weren't using many V8s anymore and the Windsor line could keep up, so they dropped the poorly executed 351M. But my gosh that 400 was in a lot of cars and trucks back in the late 70's - early '80's I don't remember many being broken either. Maybe I'm too young to have been paying much attention. Maybe they were just the right balance of torquey and underpowered to keep from self destructing? Certainly the 351C had a reputation! The Carolina van looks like a really cool glamping rig. I'm drooling over all that shop space and wondering what the interior window/passthrough is for? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nothing Special Posted July 31 Share Posted July 31 But my gosh that 400 was in a lot of cars and trucks back in the late 70's - early '80's I don't remember many being broken either. Maybe I'm too young to have been paying much attention. Maybe they were just the right balance of torquey and underpowered to keep from self destructing? Certainly the 351C had a reputation! The Carolina van looks like a really cool glamping rig. I'm drooling over all that shop space and wondering what the interior window/passthrough is for? The 351C had a good reputation (as I recall) for performance. I don't have any recollection about it regarding durability. And I have absolutely no experience with it. The 351M was a good replacement for the 360. By that I mean that both were underpowered, but at least they got poor gas mileage! And both had a really good bottom end, so they both had good potential. But heads, cam, intake and exhaust were poorly executed, so they weren't very good motors from the factory. I don't know that the 351W was inherently better than the 351M, but it did seem to be executed better (although the 2bbl carb it often came with didn't really do it any favors). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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