Its size inspires a sense of adventure in men's souls. It draws them, calling to them as if to say, "Open my door. Climb inside. Conquer the road."
By TOM ZUCCO
Published January 21, 2004
[Times photo: James Borchuck]
Matt Harding peers into the cab Monday of the Kodiak C4500 pickup truck at Maher Chevrolet in St. Petersburg. It is more than 21 feet long.
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ST. PETERSBURG - When they first parked the truck on 34th St. last week, nobody at Maher Chevrolet was sure what the reaction would be.
So far, these are the results.
When most women first encounter the black Chevy Kodiak C4500 Crew Cab pickup truck that dwarfs everything else on the lot, they utter something like, "Big truck," and continue what they were doing.
When men first gaze upon it - and that's what they do - they go through a bizarre sequence of events.
Eyes widen, jaws drop, normal speech becomes impossible and all rational thought processes cease. This is followed by random staggering toward the vehicle as if they're being drawn by a tractor beam. Once at the truck, the worship service begins. They want to caress it, peek inside the windows, check 'er out under the hood.
Then they fall in line with the others and slowly circle it until someone pulls them away.
"The first weekend we had it on 34th Street," said Donny Coleman, sales manager of the Maher Chevrolet Truck Center, "we had guys climbing all over it. Cars were slowing down and people were turning around and coming back to see it again."
Nearly all the gawkers? Men.
"It's real classy looking . . . I love it," gushed Matt Harding, who was on his tip-toes Tuesday trying to see inside the passenger side window.
A 30-year-old arborist for Alpine Tree Service in Pinellas Park, Harding drives an older model Kodiak for the tree service. But the work truck is about 10 feet longer and doesn't have a pickup bed.
"If I had the money," he said. "Oh, yeah. I'd be driving that truck.
"It's just . . . impressive."
The Chevy Kodiak is not the biggest production pickup truck in the world. International makes a model that is larger. But the Kodiak is a true, and rare, heavyweight. Coleman said Maher has the only two models in the Tampa Bay area, and one of them has already been sold to a man who plans to use it to haul a horse trailer.
The door handle is at most people's eye level. The driver's seat is almost 41/2 feet off the ground. And watch that first step. It's 19 inches high.
Want to change the oil?
You'll need 14.6 quarts.
The Kodiak is 71/2 feet tall, more than 21 feet long, and weighs more than 10,000 pounds.
No, it probably won't fit in the garage. So check the deed restrictions in your neighborhood.
It goes from zero to 60 in 16 seconds, and it would cost about $65 to fill its 40-gallon tank. Which is something you'd have to do fairly often, since its diesel engine gets about 11.5 mpg.
But if you can afford the Kodiak's $60,000 price, fuel costs are probably not a concern.
The bestselling vehicle in the United States the past several years has been the Ford F-150 pickup, so there's no denying America's love affair with trucks.
As evidenced by the skyrocketing sales of SUVs, and the recent move by Japanese automakers to jump into the full-size pickup truck market, we also like our vehicles on the plus size. Safety concerns and rising gas prices notwithstanding.
So the door was open for the Kodiak. Wide open.
In essence, what General Motors and Monroe Truck Equipment did was put a pickup cab and bed on a commercial truck body. The pickup is intended to be used to haul heavy loads, such as livestock trailers, RVs or boats.
Sure it is.
"I don't see many people buying it just to drive around, but they might," Coleman said. "We want to find out if there's a market for the person who wants to drive the biggest pickup truck in town.
"I didn't think people would buy Hummers just to drive around. But they did."
If the Kodiak becomes the next Hummer, it will be because of the same subtle reasons.
Jim Twitchell, professor of advertising and English at the University of Florida, drives an old BMW. But two of his colleagues drive Ford pickups.
"I asked them what they put in the back, and they say nothing. Not even their golf clubs. They got them because their wives won't drive them.
"You see, men have little by little had their hiding places taken away. They don't go to Shriners or Elks or Masons like they used to. Their social groups and even their golf clubs allow women now.
"But it's clear that men have a yearning that women don't have to spend time either in groups of other men or individually."
That explains only part of the attraction. There is also the element of being positioned above other drivers, in an intimidating position of power and authority. And in the Kodiak, that's almost always the case.
"Here you get the same kind of male yearning to be not only free, but strong," Twitchell said. "To be like the Kodiak bear."
Taken on a test drive, the truck handled surprisingly well, the sloping hood allowed plenty of visibility up front, and, of course, it drew stares everywhere it went.
Where will it end? When is big, too big?
That, auto analysts say, depends on the public's demand.
"If you would've asked me whether an Army vehicle with a huge wheel base would've sold, I would've said never," Twitchell said. "I remember making fun of the SUVs, too. That they were a mistake.
