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Posted by Donald F. Blair on Saturday, January 17, 2009 at 09:54:56 :
In Reply to: Re: '73 was a bad year posted by Bill Kerfoot on Saturday, January 17, 2009 at 02:23:47 :
I never thought 1971 would be so far back in time. I graduated High School that year and bought a brand new Datsun pickup. Tax, license, out the door, it was $2475.00. It also got at least 20mpg and better as I recall. Gas was 42 cents/gallon for so long that we thought the numbers were painted on the pump. My father had been an arborist since 1911. We had 1946/47 Chevy and GMC cabovers, a 1941 Dodge civilian 2-ton, a 1951 Dodge Job-Rated pickup 1/2-ton. One of our associates had a 1958 Dodge W300M with factory spec'd utility boxes. A lot of tree companies in those days had power wagons for off-road work. One company actually had a 1/2 trackwith a mist blower mounted in the bed. A mist blower was a 200 mph fan that covered wide areas with pesticide. It swiveled around just exactly like a quad-fifty.
The Datsun outlasted all of the other vehicles.The most popular pickup in the San Francisco Bay Area in those days was the Chevy C10 stepside. They cost about $3500.00
Of course I made about $2.00/hour so a truck still cost about a year's wages.