What the heck is it with monster-grille "pick-up" trucks these days? Trucks like the GM Denali, the grille of which looks like it's a meat grinder for a tyrannosaurus. No hitchhiker is getting picked up by one of these modern behemoths; based solely on looks, today's trucks are more likely to run them over.
Ah, that's it! They're not pick-up trucks, they're run-over trucks, straight out of Mad Max. And let's face it, no respecting truck owner would ever use the word "pick-up" these days, anyway. You simply say, “My truck,” in your deepest guttural.
How far we’ve come. In the '60s and '70s entire fleets of family-car-sized pick-ups filled suburbia, with moms taking junior and sis to school in low-rider models with streamlined styling and maybe even a candy tangerine flake paint job. Mere melted candy, against today's four-wheel blowtorches.
But family-sized now means S.S. Titanic. Monster trucks used to exist entirely within the domain of freak indoor arena shows. Now, you're more likely to see a driver trying to park one between a Hyundai and a Mazda, on a stop to grab a loaf of bread at the Kwik-E-Mart.
Then there is that strange minority of monster truck owners (mostly young, blue-collar males, from the looks of it) who have reconfigured their vehicles to deliberately emit huge plumes of black smoke, apparently in a rush to trigger the collapse of Greenland's remaining ice sheet. Actually, their schtick mostly involves a daily cruise-around meant to declare to the world in general and single female pedestrians in particular, "Hey, look at me, I'm a rebel, and screw climate change."
Okay, those dudes are definitely outlying. But what about everyone else who drives one of these giants and isn't a farmer or rancher, really in need of hauling hay to snowbound herds across the back forty?
Stipulation: Based on my own experience — and your mileage may vary -- there are seem to be many polite truck drivers out there on the streets, especially compared to typical SUV drivers. But it's more about the look, feel and social impact of these behemoths, not driving style. These trucks look mean just standing still. Perhaps they reflect a heightened mean-spiritedness and possessiveness in the American public. Of course, that’s a big generalization — just like the actual trucks.
And we thought we were over this after the Humvee craze. Many more of these kinds of Detroit action-hero designs, and our streets might start looking like a real-life version of that scary '96 David Cronenberg movie "Crash" — the one in which the main characters are violence voyeurs who troll the highways hoping to encounter bloody accidents. Given the choice, I'd rather stand in front of "Christine," as that murderous, titular movie car was bearing down on me -- seems like better odds.
Surely this is all symbolic of our alienated era, except that one big truck begets another in a growing social organism. Not alienation; comradery. You, too, can be an anti-hero. I’ll give you a pass if your job obliges you to lug heavy objects around all day. But if you bought a monster truck just so you can haul a family’s worth of ATVs up to the woods, where you’ll spend the weekend muddying up natural grandeur? Uh-uh.
Time was when the grille on a pick-up looked like it was smiling; you know, like Tow Mater in that cute, animated "Cars" movie (see accompanying image). Heck, pick-ups back in the day often even featured hoods shaped like baseball caps. How much more friendly and benign could you get?
Those smiling, modest trucks often signaled the arrival of your farmer neighbor or local towing shop, here to give you a hand. Now it's ... run for your lives!
Some of this is about the American fetish for bigness. But mostly it's about marketing, and how truck designers have gone full frontal urban, all of them churning out vehicles with grilles that look like they're clenching their teeth or even bearing fangs. It's all enough to cause an approaching VW Bug or Toyota Prius to roll over in fear and faint dead away
Worse, some of these trucks don't just have toothy grilles, they sport front ends that look disturbingly like, well, cod pieces. And all of them are, to borrow an apt, large-handed Trumpism, YUUUGE. Someone call Ted Cruz and alert him to the Freudian implications, so he can pass a law against it if he’s president.
In short: There's a whole lot of Effin' 150 macho goin' on out there.
So come on in to your local Dodge dealer today and get yourself into a Ram. Then feel free to punch your grille against that big old dam all day long. Because now you've V-6 power and a horn's worth of really high hopes.