I became an adult around the age of 30, that's when I got my first 250 or larger vehicle

When I was a teenager, I had three early broncos, 72, 76, and a 77. I was a hellraiser who knew everything, oh boy........ Later in life I learned what a ******* I was.

My first vehicle, was a hand-me-down 5.7 Diesel Chevy pickup truck. If you never heard of it, it's worth a Google and what a disaster that thing was. It's soured the diesel market for years.

As a bounced on through my 20's, I had a whole slew Fords, Bronco and Bronco 2, E150 van, couple of Chevys, and the Toyota pickup truck.

The Toyota pickup truck was a 1980 model, the clutch finally stopped disengaging, I drove it I think for 6 months without a clutch. At stop lights I put it in first gear and hit the starter, then I would float the gears like a big rig. It was a good truck, couldn't kill it. The police impounded it. At this point I had picked up another 1977 Bronco, and I was dumping money into that. Well I was still young and I knew everything...... I was still a *******. It was stolen.

As I said, I was about 30 when I became an adult. Myself and the local Ford dealer/ owner met one day in the parking lot while I was looking at trucks. I was giving him all kinds of grief because he was primarily a car dealer, very little truck selection. We talked for hours, that afternoon he did a search and found a F250, The next day I drove the dealer trade out of state to pick up my new truck.

Ray La fever, great guy still owns McCarthy Ford in Chicago. I never bought a truck off his lot, it was always from somewhere else, but damn near every truck from 1999 through 2020 came from him. Even though we don't live in Chicago anymore, he and I still communicate from time to time.

I had another dealer local to me in Chicago area, that would not do a dealer trade so I ended up buying a truck from him. Later in life when the Bronco was coming back out, I had placed the 100.00 reservation with McCarthy Ford and another dealership. Once the new 21 Bronco came out, I didn't care for it necessarily so I never move forward on an order. When 22 Bronco Raptor, I became one of the first ones in the country to be able to order it. The second dealership had my information, they had called me, asked him to place the order. I had just purchased a F-150 Raptor weeks earlier. I had never really heard of the Raptor Bronco, at this time either.

After going back and forth a little bit, and this was during covid. I decided not to pull the trigger on the Bronco Raptor. Well that dealer did without my knowledge, ordered under my name.

It's a short story, when that Bronco came in, the second dealer told me it was not mine to purchase even though it was ordered in my name. I had gotten Ford corporate involved, basically that dealer had to sell me the Bronco Raptor at cost, 77K, they tried to lowball me on my F-150. I called Ray, he took the F-150 off my hands at market price. 85K

The second dealer, told me clearly that they were going to put a 20 to $30,000 markup on the new Raptor Bronco, man were they pissed to have to sell to me @ sticker and they lost out on the Raptor F-150.

7 months later, I traded the Bronco for $97 K, then the market fell out. It set for 6 months before they sold it for like $90,000. I would stalk it on my Ford app.

Also around the age of 30, I was getting into Fleet Management more as opposed to production. In 2021, we had a fleet of 350 vehicles, mostly Fords. Then there was a corporate buyout sell out thing that went on, now I'm down to about 100 vehicles, most are Fords. At this point I moved also from Chicago area to the Kansas City area.

I also got into snow plowing when I got to 250, ended up working for Arctic snow and ice control out of Frankfort as a subcontractor. So it was easier for me to stay with a super duty every year, the transfer all my snow plow equipment, lights, fuel tanks, etc over to a new truck. I worked for Arctic from 1999 until 2020. That's a very interesting company, and good friends of mine. Every year we would have 500 to 600 brand new pieces of equipment, I say snow plow....., I would spend the majority of the time refueling equipment. I would do a lot of installs on their personal fleet.

In the end the super duty would basically pay for itself, also a good tax deduction. I would not trade up unless the cost was minimal. I was also buying trucks at x plan pricing, then A plan.

 

Hmmm... that's a challenging question.

In order, to the best of my recollection...

1968 Chevy Nova II 2-door, 307 V-8, PowerGlide
1969 Chevy Impala 4-door, 327 V-8, PowerGlide
1982 Yamaha XS400 Special (new)
1973 Pontiac Bonneville 2-door, 400 V-8, TH
1977 Toyota Celica hatchback
1978 Yamaha XS650 Special
1981 Honda CB750 Custom, 4-valve F-motor
1983 Honda XL250R
1993 Chevy 2500 RC/LB 350 V-8, auto, 4WD (new)
1993 Chevy 3500HD dump truck, 454 V-8, auto (new)
1993 Honda XR650L (new)
1994 International 9700 high-rise cabover, 410HP Cummins N-14, 9-speed Spicer (new)
1993 Honda CBR1000F (new)
1980 BMW 320i
1996 Chevy S-10 RC/SB, 4cyl, 5-speed (New)
1997 Chevy 2500HD EC/LB, 350 V-8, 5-speed (new)
1997 Ford F-150 RC/SB, V-6, 5-speed (new)
1999 Ford F-250 CC/LB, V-10, 5-speed (new)
2009 Ford F-250 CC/LB, V-10, auto (new)
2013 Ford F-150 SC, 302 V-8, auto (new)
2013 Ducati 796 Monster ABS
2017 Chevy 2500HD CC/LB, 377 V-8, auto (new)
2002 Ford F-150 RC/SB, V-6, auto
2023 Ford F-250 CC/LB, 445 V-8, auto 4WD (new)
2025 Ford F-250 CC/SB, 415 V-8, auto (new)

 

I thought I had issues!

 

I was looking at my list as well... and going 'Holy S&^*%, that's a lot of vehicles in just 42 years!' Granted, my list includes my motorcycles... I've had at least one, and usually 2 since 1985... as well as my work trucks (7.)

 

Of all the vehicles I’ve owned my favorites were 2004 Silverado 2500 LD 4.10s, 2002 modified corvette Z06, 2006 GSX-R1000, 2013 Hayabusa, 19’ Eliminator 454 jet boat.