The Essential Book of Pickup Trucks

Of the 60 million pickups on U.S. highways today, just 1 in 8 was bought for work purposes. The remaining 54 million are what truck dealers call lifestyle purchases. Does the pickup impulse spring from some deep, organic longing? For agrarian roots, for simpler times, for a driving experience larger than life? The Essential Book of Pickup Trucks is a memoir about the complex role pickups have played in Fred Haefeles life and in American culture at large. Growing up near the GM truck plant in Flint, Michigan, young Haefele was delighted by these centaur-like vehicles. In his adult life as an arborist, teacher, and father, pickups bore him through hard times and disaster, high adventure, triumph, and love. Through his tenure with twelve trucks, Haefele recounts his experiences with tree climbing and academia, masculinity and motor culture. For Haefele, pickup trucks hold a unique place in the American psycheequal parts fantasy steed and dray horse, theyre avatars of the American spirit. The Essential Book of Pickup Trucks is, like his trucks, uniquely free-spirited: love story, blue-collar writers tale, and motor-head memoir.