The $75 truck survives 38 years of commuting

By around this time next month we’ll be knee-deep in pitches for us to buy new cars.

The new vehicles, you may have heard, allow you to read Facebook while you drive, impress your neighbors, and satisfy your need to buy something — anything — as dictated by the new definition of a good American — whether you can afford to or not.

But KARE 11’s Boyd Huppert met a guy who harkens back to an earlier time. In Prinsburg, Minn., Bob Sportel bought a beat-up truck for $75. That was 38 years, several rolls of duct tape, and 300,000 miles ago.

Sportel has just retired from the grain elevator where he works, driving the same truck he drove on his first day of employment. The truck does the same thing the newfangled contraptions do: It gets you from Point A to Point B.

There’s no radio in the truck, which, of course, is the real crime here.