RED CAR WHITE DOG:

A Riff on Sporting Vehicles and Other Matters

- By Bob DeMott

In the past several decades, most outdoorsy sporting people probably wouldn't be caught dead without a roomy enough truck to carry gear, dogs, paraphernalia and compatriots. For serious hunters and anglers, it has become a badge of personal identity and perhaps even one-upmanship to eschew traditional family sedans in favor of specialized vehicles, of which there is now an unprecedented number of foreign and domestic makes, models and configurations from which to choose. I'm not immune to the allure. I have owned an unbroken string of 4-wheel-drive utility vehicles, from International Scouts in the 1970s to K-5 and S-10 Chevy Blazers in the 1980s, to Toyota 4Runners since then, the current iteration of which is a 2014 model bought used in 2016 that has passed 200,000 miles on its odometer. Equipped with a rooftop storage carrier, it has been the unfailingly reliable and roomy go-to wagon for all my bird hunting trips and fly fishing adventures.

Before the current era of all-terrain, go-anywhere, conquer-nature fascination, it was a different story. In the antediluvian era of the 1950s and 1960s, before every Tom, Dick and Mary felt it was an inalienable, God-given right to drive a 4-wheel-drive SUV, crossover or pick-up truck for their sporting conveyance, most folks made do with whatever vehicle was at hand. Of course, there were specialized vehicles — Jeeps of various configurations, Dodge Power Wagons, Toyota Land Cruisers and the ultimate field car, one or more models of British Land Rover — but no one I knew or fraternized with in my working-class circle could afford such a specialized bully vehicle.