After suddenly finding ourselves the proud owners of a brand new Airstream Flying Cloud, we were happily envisioning our new life traveling the country. Then our salesperson inquired when we wanted to schedule our walk through and pick up. Pick up? A pick up would require a tow vehicle, which we did not have. One major purchase had pushed us right into another: now we had to buy a tow vehicle able to handle a five ton load!
Back to the internet to figure out what type of truck we needed and what the choices were. With three of us, we knew we needed a backseat and four doors. We looked at how many pounds these trucks could tow – we knew we wanted something that could easily tow our Airstream as well as have the truck bed filled with all our yet to be determined gear. We probably could have made due with a half-ton truck but we wanted to make sure we weren’t ever in a position where we were struggling to tow. We determined that a ¾ ton truck was more than sufficient so that narrowed it down to Ford 250, Ram 2500 and Chevy Silverado 2500. We also knew that we were planning on crisscrossing the Rockies multiple times with our Airstream in tow and we wanted more than sufficient power to handle this, so we added diesel to the list or requirements. And, of course, we required a tow package.
Given the price tag, we opted for certified pre-owned. We didn’t really care what color as long as it was NOT red. We were both in complete agreement, red was loud and obnoxious.
Our online search across all dealers within 100 miles of our house yielded slim pickings, but there was a white Ford pickup for sale about 45 minutes away. We drove there and inquired about it. The salesperson had the truck as advertised, plus she told us we were in luck as a red one was also available. Politely, we said we look at both of them, but we stifled smiles as our eyes met and we internally laughed about the prospect of a fire engine red pickup truck.
One hour later we had purchased the enormous RED Ford F250. What had happened in the interim? There was no contest. We instantly disliked the white pickup. It had a black interior and a long bed and looked quite utilitarian, like a commercial utility truck. The red truck however was love at first sight; it had black wheel accents, tan leather seats (both heated and air-conditioned, who knew!!), a shorter bed. Overall, it was gorgeous. We signed the papers on the spot. Our conservative dark blue sedan had been replaced with a bright red pickup truck! And we really do love it; it is comfortable, it handles towing the Airstream with ease and it is so easy to locate in a crowded parking lot!