I’m no pickup artist

A few weeks ago, journalist Phoebe Wall Howard reported about car buyers’ tech fatigue. It recalled a news article I had read a couple of months ago about a stripped-down drab gray pickup that had no computerized doodads, no snazzy trim, or even power windows. It was called The Slate, as in blank slate.

I have long dreamed of owning a pickup. Perhaps it’s because I grew up around utility vehicles. My dad had pickups, painted yellow to match our yellow-and-blue hardware storefront. Later on he drove a panel van, also yellow.

But what passes for a pickup truck these days is a vehicle equivalent of a McMansion that I neither want nor need. I have long envisioned myself in a little pickup like a Datsun 521 or a Chevy Luv.

And here it is, almost. A right-sized, affordable, little, no-nonsense pickup. An electric vehicle (EV), even.

At its base price, The Slate costs around $27,000, which is only a couple of thousand more than I paid for my first house in the mid-1980s.

That rock-bottom price is only a steal if you plan on taking it as is. Its pickup chassis can be converted any number of ways. You want a dune buggy, just add a roof rack. Desire a zippy SUV? You can refashion The Slate as a fastback. Or you can make it into a squareback. Snazz up the pickup with a blacktop kit, tire carrier and upgraded grille for a price. You can also give it a bright paint job or wrap it.

The appearance of The Slate is good news for a closet populist like me because it’s offensive and discriminatory how much cars cost.

The Slate

I tend to keep cars until they are nearly dead on their feet. In the process, they become members of the family. For example, I loved “Blanche,” my little 2008 Pontiac Vibe, but it had 160,000-some miles on it, and it was starting to ka-ching my budget every other month.

Why did you like that car, you may ask. Cars mean little to me. In fact, I view them as a necessary evil, a mere conveyance, although I know that that is not the American way. I feel about cars the way I used to feel about those polo shirts with the little crocodile logo sewn on. Pffffft.

I did not learn auto antagonism at my father’s knee, nor my mother’s. My dad always bought a new car — American-made, Chryslers, Fords, Buicks, but he owned his own hardware business.

His English major daughter, however, needed a more affordable means to tootle down the highway. When I discovered Click and Clack, the Magliozzi brothers (of NPR “Car Talk” fame) decades ago, they converted me to driving a good used car, and I have survived without the new car smell.

One of the first cars I drove was a blue Chevrolet Chevette. Ah, that Chevette, what a classic. It belonged to some friends, and the only problem was that it was a stick shift, and I had never driven a stick.

Also, I was not mechanically inclined. Years ago, I wrote a column for a newspaper about the perils of compression squawks and me wanting to stick that shift where the sun didn’t shine.

Still, I eventually learned to drive the Chevette and grew to love manual transmissions. That car had nothing but a motor, hand-crank windows (no AC) and a radio that never worked, but I drove it for almost 20 years. When I finally traded it for a Ford Escort wagon, my son, who was about four at the time, was bereft. “I miss our blue car!” he wailed. Me, too, buddy. Me, too.

I felt the same way trading in Blanche. She had no AUX port, just a CD player, and a crappy — but functional — radio. No computerized nuthin’, but she had been a boon companion for 16 years.

Even though Blanche was not dead yet, and I had hoped to drive her another couple of years, my spidey-sense said otherwise. After 45/47 was elected last November, I worried about proposed tariffs and skyrocketing car prices.

So, I plunged into Consumer Reports and read my way toward a used foreign vehicle with low miles.

So, I catapulted at lightning speed into the techno-world with my newest whip. I still don’t know what all the doohickeys and thinga-mabobs are for, and I worry about the cost of repairs down the road. Still, I feel like I’ve grown up somehow. I finally get to sit at the auto version of the adults’ table.

Now that I have all the bells and whistles, now that I have a backup camera and a way to sync my phone to the iPad-sized monitor for a hands-free experience, other consumers have met their saturation point with all that noise.

This is the story of my life. When I finally get where everybody’s been, they’ve already gone a different direction.

They are in search of the clean/blank Slate. They want a bare-bones, minimalist, just-the-facts-ma’am ride.

Just like I used to have.

Joan Zwagerman likes her newer car, but she also misses Blanche.