Big Brown

You can only haul so much lumber, sand, building block, and cement in a hatchback Subaru until you start ripping upholstery, scratching up the dash (oops), and upsetting the missus...Thankfully, an old, well-loved Ford truck was recently offered to us. It is perfect for us; beat-up enough for liability-only insurance and no worries about the paint or chucking logs into the bed, but in good enough shape (after $300 in tune-up parts and a few weekends of work) to have plenty of life left.

It's an '89 F250 extended cab 4x4.

The 4-wheel drive works, proven here as I attempted to drive it into the water-logged field, and then required it to get back out.

We live in the county, so delivery fees for gravel or dirt can be $60 (that's right, $60 of dirt costs me $120). So now, sheets of plywood, dimensional lumber longer than 8', towing, and "fitting in" in the county are all go. Plus, we got a multi-car price reduction for insurance, so it's not costing us much for how rarely we'll be driving it (we're still a one-car household for commuting). Just wish it got better than 10 miles per gallon...can't have it all I guess.