1980s American Cars, Guns, Gadgets and Consumer Goods [Atmosphere, look, minutiae]

[Icelander]

2)

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Pickup trucks can also be cool for young men, like that Toyota SR5 that was Marty McFly's dream car, especially in rural areas.

1)

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Switching gears unless the lumber company owner is a Wall street fish out of water he'll be driving a pick up truck. A very large one, possibly with an extended cab. Not one of those little Toyotas that are ubiquitous overseas. Those were know in the US at the time but humorists tended to paint out the OATA on the rear gate and leave only the TOY. Stallone fans went for YO instead. Not lumberjack material.

Originally Posted by Phantasm

Right. Ford (probably the F-150), GMC/Chevy (can't remember model), and Dodge (Ram) were the three big-name companies of the day offering heavy-duty pickups. (I forget who owned Jeep at the time, since American Motors had collapsed and took their Eagle, the four-wheel drive station wagon, with it. Pretty sure Chrysler had just acquired the Jeep, but don't hold me to that.) International had stopped making the Scout II half a decade or so back, but there were still quite a few Scouts converted to pickups on the road; you might see the loggers driving them.

There'll be plenty of pick-up trucks owned by North Woods Logging, but I was thinking about the personal luxury automobiles of the owner and his son. The father, Clayborn Allen, is less lumberjack than timber baron turned real estate developer and the son, Courtney Allen, is a dyed-in-the-wool preppie at Harvard, albeit a preppie with Manly Man pretensions and a fixation on maximum power, most expensive TactiCool possessions, whether guns or cars.

Clayborn Allen (mill owner) is a local Allagash-Dickey, Aroostook County Mainian, born and bred, but he did go to McGill and Harvard Business School before taking over his father's mill. Married a girl from a good family in Bridgeport, Connecticut in 1960 and has in the past three decades turned a modestly successful local logging operation in a tiny town into a powerhouse that has concerns all over northern Maine, and even further.

He still owns the Allen Sawmill and Allagash Wood Products in Allagash, but they are completely overshadowed by his extensive North Woods Logging Company, which has operations all over northwest Aroostook County and sell lumber to many other mills. He also owns a part of several paper mills in both US and Canada. According to Sheriff Edgar Wheeler, Allen makes even more money on real estate speculation than his logging and manufacturing bring in.

The family own luxury apartments/condos in Montréal* and Boston (Back Bay, close to his brother) and a vacation home in Bridgeport, Connecticut near the wife's family. North Woods Logging Company also has executive suites with offices meant for Mr. Allen's use in Portland, Augusta, Bangor, Houlton and Presque Isle (all ME); cabins in several areas in Maine, such as by Eagle Lake, seveal in the Highlands, one near Mt. Katahdin and another near the headwaters of the St. John River; and a house with ground floor offices and a nice bachelor apartment on the second floor in Madawska, ME. Clayborn also has a brother, Dr. Harvey Allen, who lives in Back Bay, Boston, Massachusetts, but has a very remote hunting cabin in northwest Aroostook County, Maine.

So, while a pick-up truck might do for certain job-related things, he'll want to own at least one fancy car that can nevertheless get up to his brother's hunting cabin an hour northwest of Allagash, through some very rough terrain.

And if he has a pick-up truck, it has to be a very powerful model, with extremely good handling. Clayborn is usually past the need to show off for the purposes of stroking his own ego, at least as blatantly as his son, but he will not hesitate to do so far business advanage. A rugged outdoorsy image might be good for much of his business, but there are a lot of potential partners from urban areas that constantly need to be reassured that behind the ruggedness, there are obscene amounts of money.

*Someone please suggest a part of town for one, I don't know the first thing about Montréal.

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Originally Posted by Anaraxes

So for four-wheel drive cars/trucks, you had:

Chevy Blazer
International Scout II
GMC Suburban (I forget when they had the Suburban under the Chevy line, but at the time there should still be a few Chevy Suburbans on the road)
Dodge Ram
Ford F-150/F-250
Jeep Renegade (the classic Jeep)
Jeep Cherokee and Wagoneer (the Wagoneer had wooden panels on the side; otherwise, same basic vehicle)
American Motors Eagle (station wagon)
(Pretty sure there was another running around, but I can't remember it offhand...)

Cool, thanks.

Incidentally, is the Ford F-350 not an option in 1988? I can never understand these types, but I think that's the more powerful version of the F-150.

1), 2) and 3)

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

A few Chevy Econoline vans were converted to 4WD as well. This being the deep woods of Maine, no doubt there were a few "Johnny Cash Cadillac"s out there as well. Occasionally you'd see stuff as small as a Ford Ranger or Chevy S-10 converted to 4WD, but IIRC they weren't put out that way.

A luxury conversion of a Ford Econline van sounds like a very nice vehicle to keep at the Dickey 'mansion' to use to pick up Dr. Harvey Allen and his friend whenever they fly over to visit their cabin.

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Note that 4WD at the time meant you still had to get out and lock the hubs of the front tires and then throw the second line of the transmission into 4WD. I can't remember any 4WD trucks that had automatic transmissions.

Thanks, I never would have thought of that. Empathically not a car guy, never really driven anything but late 1990s and later cars, where everything is electric, really simple and easy to use.