Everybody's Truckin'

You can get them in meadow green, wheatland yellow, marine blue, firebolt orange, spruce green, grapefruit yellow, classic bronze and crimson red. They have power-operated sun roofs, bucket seats, air conditioning. Some even have beds, refrigerator, toilet. These are the new amenities on the lowly old truck, which is propelling Detroit into a truck-making boom.

Truck sales so far this year are racing 40% ahead of 1971. In 1972, 2,200,000 trucks are scheduled to roll out of dealer showrooms, more than double the number sold a decade ago. Most important, as Martin Caserio, head of General Motors' GMC truck and coach division, says: "Trucks have a definite relationship to the overall state of the economy. Some experts believe that truck sales stimulate the economy, and others feel that they only reflect the health of the economy. Either way, the current bright prospects for trucks offer promise for the economy as a whole."

The largest and fastest growing segment of the business is the pickup truck, which retails for $2,800 to $4,300. Once bought mainly by farmers, it has benefited from America's growing lust for outdoor recreation. The open-bodied truck is now a recreational vehicle, often topped by a camper, that carries or tows snowmobiles, bikes, and dune buggies to the mountains, plains and deserts. A recent Ford survey shows that 57% of all light trucks are used partly for recreation. Indeed, Dodge is setting up a squad of traveling repair vans that will service disabled trucks that are Isolated in the nation's parks and other recreational areas. The auto companies, sensing the recreational trend, made the pickup truck more acceptable to suburban families by styling it more like a car. In twelve major markets, Ford reports, 14% of suburban families own trucks.

Double Up. Ford and Chevrolet are the biggest sellers of pickup trucks. To attract young truck buyers, particularly West Coast surfers, Ford recently began importing a compact-styled pickup from Japan; Chevy will soon do the same.

The heavy end of the truck market, composed mainly of the construction and trucking firms, is also growing. The big three automakers produced 60% of the heavy trucks sold last year; the rest were turned out by International Harvester, White Motor Corp., Mack Trucks, Diamond Reo and other companies. The 7% investment tax credit has helped spur demand. So has the decline of train service, and the fact that 25,000 communities in the U.S. have no means of delivery service other than trucks. Industry leaders expect total sales to increase 50% by 1980 to $10 billion, a growth rate that not even the auto industry is expected to match.

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