<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"I have a buddy who just picked up a &amp;#039;66 Ford F100: a Wimbledon White relic from a time before trucks grew into the caricatures they&amp;#039;ve become. It&amp;#039;s little more than a straight-six, a four-speed gearbox, and a nine-inch rear. It&amp;#039;s not four-wheel drive. It can&amp;#039;t tow 30,000 lbs or tote your entire family in relative comfort. It will not alert you of traffic or weather woes. It will not slow itself automatically.  It&amp;#039;s a tool designed expressly to haul cargo from over here to over there someplace. Have you tried to load anything hefty into a new truck lately? The bed rails sit at about throat level. The tailgate squares off right at your sternum. The &amp;#039;66, meanwhile, has a load height that sits at your hips, which means even someone with my pipe-cleaner physique can cajole hefty goods into the back. You don&amp;#039;t have to rip your nipples off in an effort to dead lift up into the bed that ancient, unusable engine block you&amp;#039;ve decided you can&amp;#039;t live without.   Modern trucks have become so hell-bent on out-muscling each other that they&amp;#039;ve sacrificed the usability required to get shit done.  READ THIS: Drive Notes: 2014 Chevrolet SS   I worked for a contractor for four years during college, and the guys on the job site fell into three camps. There were the general laborers, like me, who showed up on the site in anything with wheels\u2014fenders optional. Somewhere in the middle were the guys with the trucks. The polished, impossibly clean trucks. They could haul material from the building supply chain, they stuffed their tools in locking aluminum boxes in their beds, and they sucked up the 10-mile-per-gallon gas bill.  Then there were the veterans: the guys with no hearing in one ear, fused vertebrae from falling off roofs, and missing knuckles from errant skill saws. The lifers who could sculpt a cherry-wood railing that would bring tears to your eyes. They drove vans. Big, ugly, white commercial vans with all of their tools perfectly organized and easy to access, with racks on the roof for lumber.   At the time, I didn&amp;#039;t get it. I wanted the four-wheel-drive, 454 long-bed Silverado 2500 with the bitchin&amp;#039; all-terrain tires. Who the hell cares that you have to spend 15 minutes every day digging your tools out of a cramped box in the bed? It has a 454. Vans look like, well ... vans.  READ THIS: A 410-mile, 7-hour joyride in the BMW 4 Series   And then I put 1400 miles on a Ram Promaster 1500. That review is coming, but my biggest realization from the experience is that today&amp;#039;s utility vans are the only place buyers can turn for the sort of no-bull functionality that pickups once offered. There&amp;#039;s weatherproof, lockable storage for everything from cargo to tools and toys. The whole vehicle is designed specifically for work with an even lower load height, flat floor, and clever tie-downs. I can appreciate that. Hell, I love it. I love it enough that I camped out in the back of the thing in the last frigid snowstorm of the year.  And if you can live without dual-zone climate control and 14 cup holders, utility vans offer the kind of recreational functionality that marketing has led you to believe exists in most SUVs. Throw the kayaks, mountain bikes, motorcycles, or Magic: The Gathering collection into the van, drive to the lake, unload, and your campsite&amp;#039;s set. Screw tents\u2014sleep in back.   I&amp;#039;ve always liked trucks. Growing up in the South, pickups are as common as the clay beneath your feet\u2014a fact of life, like sugar in your tea and questionable convictions on the origins of species. But I have little love for our modern monstrosities and their ludicrous price tags. We&amp;#039;re in the midst of a van renaissance, with vehicles like the Ford Transit, Dodge Promaster, Mercedes Sprinter, and Nissan NV line offering no-nonsense solutions to an old problem.  Want to get the job done and have fun when it&amp;#039;s over? Forget the marketing. Brace yourself for the inevitable tidal wave of &amp;#039;free candy&amp;#039; jokes and buy a van.  If you need me, I&amp;#039;ll be on Craigslist. READ THIS: Project Ugly Horse: Part X "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/features/a7481/charmed-life-of-the-van-dweller/>