The newly acquired elderly truck was showing its age and I couldn’t quite pin down why. The body style on this model hasn’t really changed significantly for almost two decades. Not until I drove past the dealer lot with a sea of brand new versions did I realize what had happened. Old man bling.
The kindly gentleman that had the truck before me I suspect bought it brand new, paid a fortune, and was very proud of the beast. Rightly so and I don’t begrudge anyone’s taste or style but it became immediately obvious that he had invested some time and money on a lot of ‘customization’. A bit too much fake chrome here and there, badly applied pinstripes which probably wouldn’t have looked good even if they were perfect, some factory flash and glitter that should never have been there in the first place – it all added up to a dated look. Like a green leisure suit four decades after disco was all the rage. I suspect in his day, this treatment was the automotive version of a west-coast hipster. Maybe it would fly in Vegas with Elvis impersonators but it certainly didn’t work here in rural Canada. Sitting next to the new year’s models as I had the dealer run the truck for recall notices*, you could see the effect was just aging the whole affair.
* Something everyone should do with a newly acquired vehicle considering the recent spate of wide-ranging missteps in the auto industry. Never assume they’ve been done even on brand new models. Don’t trust the internet to get it right either. Recalls are keyed to specific VIN numbers in the manufacturer’s more accurate master database and after all, they’re free.
So how do you roll back five or more years off the look of a badly-blinged truck or car? Take off all the extra junk. Which is precisely what I spent the mostly cloudy outdoor weekend doing with lots of elbow grease and Goo Gone. Amazing stuff that is and it smells like oranges instead of garage solvent. Most of the bad bling came off easily but a heat gun
I may not be much of a vehicle enthusiast but I know it looks a lot better now. Click below to embiggen and play the ‘before and after’ game with a few snapshots from the field.
Scroll down for the “answers”
