Yes, yes, I know. Elizabeth Blackstock, who has spent 1000 years grumping about truck owners, now owns a truck. A big, beautiful 1996 Chevrolet Suburban. Get familiar with this bad boy, because I’m sure you’ll be seeing it a lot around here. And for my introductory post to this sweet machine, I want to know what you want to know.
My husband and I have been in the market for Something Beefy for a while, and I have remained true to my word that no human being actually needs to own something that big. I’ve felt confident turning down one listing after another for whatever reason: too many miles, too much rust, too expensive, bro that thing is literally falling apart and doesn’t even run, what have you. I’ve been adamant that every dollar we make goes directly into our savings account for house buying purposes.
And then he sent me this one.
This absolute legend was posted on Twitter Marketplace—the same place I found my husband, oddly enough—by Jalopnik’s own Toni Scott. She’s been selling off some of her cars to get money together to buy a van and start traveling the world, which is very exciting. But it also meant my husband sent me Toni’s tweet, telling me to “ask her if she’s legit.” He also had to call me to alert me to the fact that he had sent me this tweet because I was otherwise occupied (untangling a knotted ball of yarn that I had fallen asleep on).
I was fully ready to deliver yet another big fat “no.” And then I saw it. And I was like, “Okay, so this is your Christmas present, don’t ask me for anything else this year.”
Folks in the responses to Toni’s tweet echoed the sentiment my husband was telling me: this near-mint beast is equipped with a big-block 454 V8 engine and it is baby blue—she could easily have gotten someone to pay stupid money for it at an auction. But I got lucky here because she was looking for someone who would pay her asking price and come nab it, thus saving her all the hassle of going through the auction process.
I have been blessed by the big truck gods despite my previous takes, and I fully intend to use this blessing the way the lord saw fit: by camping out of the back of it at race tracks and using it to haul around other goofy cars I buy.
Once I drive it a bit more, I'm going to write up a full review. So—what all do you want to know?