Spugly By The Numbers

Waning Gibbous Moon

Spugly the Spectacularly Ugly Palomino Transporter certainly measured up to its rigorous task on my recent spin around the Southwest Divided States of America. For the uninformed, Spugly is a 1987 Mazda B2200 long bed pickup truck with a 4 liter engine and a plywood bed liner that covers up gaping rusted out holes in the long, but sadly incomplete bed. Spugly spent its first twenty-six years in Marina, CA, a pleasant little beach town with lots of corrosive salt water fog. Hence the holes.

Anyway, its initial owner was a gardener who puttered around locally until he became ill. For ten years, Spugly sat idle in front of the gardener's home. When I bought it in 2013, it only had been driven 93,000 miles. So really, despite the rust, it was a good deal for $1,500.

By the way, you will note that although Spugly has a name, it is a truck, not a girl or a boy or any sort of imaginative combination on the broad spectrum of twenty-first century gender identities. It is a very good little truck of which I am fond. But it is an it. Any type of personality or character is just  projected or assigned because life should be at least a little bit fun, IMHO. If this movie wasn't at least a little bit fun, it would be just plain ridiculous.

Spugly was named in the parking lot of the Windmill Market by Cud'n Mindy shortly after I bought it. I remarked that I had recently bought this spectacularly ugly vehicle and instantly, Cud'n Mindy blurted "Spugly!" That woman is a genius.

On the aforementioned road trip, Spugly logged 4,386 miles on 144.2 gallons of gasoline (which was alarmingly cheaper in Uncalifornia than here at home - by a lot - like $1.50 per gallon cheaper most places) for an average of 30.4 miles per gallon. That is outstanding if you ask me, Or even if you don't, it is still outstanding. It burned only one quart of oil on the way to Tejas. I stopped at Lube N Go in El Paso for an oil change and new oil filter as I was leaving. From there all the way to San Juan Bautista, it hummed and purred and didn't burn any oil at all. Way cool. Spugliferous.

Spugly has a bench seat, much more comfortable than bucket seats, no air conditioning, no power steering, no electric windows or mirrors, no radio, no cruise control - none of that stupid stuff that you do not need and have to pay oodles of bucks to fix when it inevitably breaks. Some day I will shell out the money to replace the multi-chipped windshield which is probably one pea-sized gravel shot away from shattering in little bits right in my lap. But no big hurry on that.

The gray, Sun-degraded, plastic front bumpers are held on by an array of black zip ties, adding immensely to Spugly's sleek, classy lines when viewed from the silly rear view camera in your $40,000 compact sport utility vehicle. I mean, what did we ever do without those things?. I should probably get new license plates next time I register it, though. They are both so battered and rusty that the cops are bound to stop me sooner or later. Yes, I am going to get "SPUGLY" plates for certain. Eat your heart out.

Peace, Love, and Transportation,
Jim