i cut my teeth on a 1980…
i cut my teeth on a 1980 Custom Deluxe 3 on the tree 6cyl, no frills Chevy. you could trace it's roots back to the 1930's straight six. A real truck. A real truck i sold for more than i paid for it (new) 12 years after purchase. NO web influencers mpg-shaming back then. A truck drank what it needed and that is STILL OK with me 45 years later. But GM changed. My 1985 Silverado, 180 degrees in luxury different from the C10, had a FOUR speed auto transmission. The fourth gear was an overdrive Chevy put in to SAVE gas. Shift lever position 4 cost me a $900 tranny repair when the OD lugged the V8 and the V8 shook the tranny apart. No internet to complain to. No comp from GM. Asked the svc manager how to fix it, he said, don't put the shift lever in 4. Whatta fix GM! 2012, first new truck i looked at, a Silverado, still overdriving, but now including a V8-4. TG for internet! Read about the scuffed cylinders and excessive oil consumption from cylinder deactivation, and shimmied over to Toyota Tundra. Suddenly it's 1980 again and life is good, a real truck with 100 percent reliability. 13 years later not a repair on the Tundra, ever. But today is different than 1980, the nits have multiplied a million-fold and now they nit-pick at fuel economy, on a full size 5000+ lb pickup truck. My inability to brag about fuel economy MPG on my trucks for 45 years has not driven me to the poorhouse. But GM's improvements for better fuel economy sure tried to put me there once upon a time, but nevermore.