The Ugly Canada Thread

[WhipperSnapper]

I purchased my first cars from the building manager at my father's apartment building. One was a 1970s F150 with like 5000 miles. This was around 1998. It did take time and money to get the title and it running.

[Pinion]

Originally Posted by LeftCoaster

I wonder if there is a bias of where you live to all this? If you live in rural parts of Canada or Alberta there seems to be a much more negative view of pickups.

Having lived in Vancouver or Toronto my whole life I don't really see pickups outside of work vehicles and the odd personal truck so I don't really have a negative association of them. Never even heard of coal rollers or truck nuts outside of the internet.

I have one buddy in Vancouver whos dad has a pick up for their cabin up the coast. We used it to haul some topsoil for my moms garden on the north shore and he helped me move one time. It was great.

If I was seeing the types of jackasses you guys are describing every day I would probably have a different view of pickups, but as far as my urban interaction with them they seem quite innocuous to me.

There are tons of giant picks ups on the north shore/south of Fraser where longshoremen and blue collar types work/live. They're making a mess of my condo parkade with trucks that are bigger than their spots (often with a Harley in front too).

And the only time I've seen a coal roller was on the Stanley Park causeway.

[Xelebes]

Pickups I have no problem with. The new pickups are okay with all their bells and whistles. Glammed pickups are still tolerable. I've seen duallies used industrially, especially in a city like Edmonton where people are in fact hauling some impressive sized loads. I guess we don't have the whitecollar oil engineers swanning into their cubicle warehouses everywhere here as they might have in Calgary. In Edmonton, you very often see men and women crawl out of their pickups in their blue safety overalls.

But coalrollers? They have no place on the road. The only people who fit out their cars that way are the ones who have a chip on their shoulders.

[O-tacular]

From this afternoon. Note how it towers over the SUV beside it. Seriously, this thing was bigger than a Humvee. I presume the driver was 5 foot 4 and wearing an Affliction T-shirt with tribal tattoos covering his arms.

[O-tacular]

This isn't Ugly Canada but Ugly New Jersey. It makes Le Phare tower in Quebec City slightly more palatable.



For hilarious commentary see page 5 of the Liberty Rising thread: http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=212186&page=5

[O-tacular]

Poor Hamilton... I don't think I've ever seen a post from there that didn't belong on this thread.

From the Great Canadian Reclad Thread:

Originally Posted by thomax

One of Hamilton's ugliest buildings is getting a reclad...

Before:

source

After:

Strathearne Suites Renovation - November 24, 2015 by Joe, on Flickr


Strathearne Suites Renovation - November 24, 2015 by Joe, on Flickr

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by O-tacular

From this afternoon. Note how it towers over the SUV beside it. Seriously, this thing was bigger than a Humvee. I presume the driver was 5 foot 4 and wearing an Affliction T-shirt with tribal tattoos covering his arms.

Haha OK you win that one, that's pretty horrific and even if it is used for work still unnecessarily lifted.

[O-tacular]

Originally Posted by milomilo

Haha OK you win that one, that's pretty horrific and even if it is used for work still unnecessarily lifted.

Can you imagine how much it must cost to fill up? The other thing it had which you can't see here is a massive push bumper worthy of a SWAT vehicle. It always confuses me why Joe Schmo truck driver would ever need that. Are you planning on liberating a car trapped in a stream or ramming your way through stranded cars on the highway in the zombie apocalypse?

[WhipperSnapper]

I don't get on the 401 too often but, when I do, I've seen my share of duelies that certainly aren't just for work.

[VIce]

Originally Posted by O-tacular

From this afternoon. Note how it towers over the SUV beside it. Seriously, this thing was bigger than a Humvee. I presume the driver was 5 foot 4 and wearing an Affliction T-shirt with tribal tattoos covering his arms.

The Hummer is surprisingly small, considering its reputation. The thing came onto the public market in 1992, and it was bigger than everything on the road. But while modern vehicles keep getting bigger and more bloated, the Hummer is still from 1992.

Consider this: the Volkswagen Jetta is longer than the Hummer.

Or: if you include wing mirrors, the Hummer is narrower than every single full-size pickup available in North America today. If you're a fair-sized adult male, you can peer over the roof, which is more than you can say about a lot of modern trucks.

Not to say the Hummer is small by any means, but that modern vehicles are huge and getting bigger every day.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by urbandreamer

I wish Ford would bring back the Ranger.

They've been toying with the idea, but it would cost as much as the F150 anyway... no point.

Though the Coloranyon has been selling really well, so who knows.

BTW, the truck I was talking about in my post probably looked a lot like your '87

[eemy]

Originally Posted by milomilo

Haha OK you win that one, that's pretty horrific and even if it is used for work still unnecessarily lifted.

The most charitable interpretation I can come up with is that perhaps he needs it to be level with a loading dock? Otherwise, the lift kit completely eliminates any utility the vehicle has.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by urbandreamer

I love pickup trucks--I learned to drive in an '87 F-150 and '77 Jeep Pickup. I wish they'd bring back the simple stick shift and bare bones dash of the pre-90s trucks.

Here's my F150, pic taken by me in October of 2006 (with the plow off)... It was the "Custom" trim (the most bare bones) with a bench seat and stick shift. I liked it

[lio45]

Originally Posted by jeremy_haak

The most charitable interpretation I can come up with is that perhaps he needs it to be level with a loading dock? Otherwise, the lift kit completely eliminates any utility the vehicle has.

I'm impressed O-Tac managed to catch one that quickly!

If he sees at least one every day in his neck of the woods, color me surprised. I suppose you could say that at least these guys are doing their part to help the local industry, at great personal cost (at the pump)....

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by jeremy_haak

The most charitable interpretation I can come up with is that perhaps he needs it to be level with a loading dock? Otherwise, the lift kit completely eliminates any utility the vehicle has.

Agree. Anyone stating they need a lift for work for any reason is telling a bare faced lie, especially if they work in the oil field. My company has hundreds of pickups in Canada alone, some of which live a very hard life on lease roads carrying heavy loads. Not a single one is lifted, because it's pointless.

[Acajack]

Coalroller is a new word for me too. Though I have seen what is meant by it - but only on TV and in movies.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by lio45

I wonder what exactly that is, in your opinion... will you elaborate?

Being a RWD vehicle with a light rear, they're perfect for that.

I recall back in the years when I had chosen to be in charge of my buildings' plowing myself (I bought a used F150 for that purpose, paid for itself and then some during the very first winter) I would do that all the time.

That F150 (5.0 manual 4x4 reg cab short box) with its big heavy snowplow in the front and good winter tires on all wheels was a delight for turning corners like that in freshly fallen snow! (And of course, everytime I got behind the wheel, it was because of freshly fallen snow.)

Just going along with the gag…

But still, there is something to the theory.

Oddly enough, the clear runner-up for vehicles I see doing that in the snow is the Modified Honda Civic… quite different from a pickup, though maybe the people behind the wheel aren't too different.

[O-tacular]

I shit ye not I left the office today and this is what I saw in the parking lot. I know for a fact the Suburban and the big truck behind it are driven by health plan advisers who only use them during work hours to drive to sales meetings.



Also at the grocery store after work I parked beside a jacked up douche mobile with a set of extra night halogen lights on the police level ramming bumper and just as I'm wondering if it's some tattoo sporting rig pig this guy who looks like he could be an accountant in a suit gets in.

[milomilo]

While they aren't exactly efficient, large vehicles, especially pickups are very useful in day to day life. It's a lot easier to get a couch off kijiji when you have a vehicle capable of doing it. They're also great for camping, mountain biking, ski trips etc. So even though that health plan advisor isn't using it for work it still may be useful on occasion at least.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Just going along with the gag…

But still, there is something to the theory.

Oddly enough, the clear runner-up for vehicles I see doing that in the snow is the Modified Honda Civic… quite different from a pickup, though maybe the people behind the wheel aren't too different.

Well, obviously, as a teen, my first few cars were FWD, so of course we did that too... but the dynamics aren't the same.

With a Civic, you'll need the handbrake, and you won't use the gas for the same purpose. Not as pleasant and a lot more pointless.

With the pickup, the (really) heavy plow in the front was the icing on the cake from a dynamic point of view. It was a delight to control with nearly effortless precision in those corner-turning slides (in fresh snow).