By some accounts, today is National Pickup Truck Day.
One of the world’s most notable trucks is in Santo Domingo, in the Dominican Republic.
For the last three decades or so, it’s been hanging five stories up on the side of a building.
The building is the headquarters of Santo Domingo Motors.
The story goes that back in the 1990s, one of the service department workers was heading home in one of the company’s vehicles, a 1992 Chevy Silverado.
It may have been fatigue, or heavy rain, or both, or something else, but the worker lost control of the pickup and crashed.
The next day, he had a sort of George Washington-and-the-cherry tree moment, coming clean about his crash.
The shop says it decided to turn these vehicular lemons into lemonade, by fixing up the wreck, repainting it red, and mounting it on the side of its office building.
On its website, the company says it’s meant as a reminder to put people first, but companies also don’t mind publicity, and the truck has certainly brought this shop plenty.
According to the automotive news site The Drive, the red pickup is not only a sort of mascot for Santo Domingo Motors, it’s become a kind of local landmark.
If you see the truck on the side of the building, you know you’ve arrived in Santo Domingo.
The company does have to take the truck off that wall every few years to clean it, refurbish it and repaint it.
People actually stop and complain, asking how come the truck isn’t on the wall anymore and when is it going to go back up?
The answer is: when the overhaul is done, plus the time it takes for a crane to lift the pickup back into place, and for a crew to secure it high up on the wall.
Last month the Oshawa Generals of the Ontario Hockey League apologized for sending fans a letter asking them to stop being smelly.
The team said it had gotten complaints about unwashed fans bothering other attendees at games, so they wrote to ask, hey, how about a shower before you show up to the arena?
Fans weren’t happy with their team implying that they stunk.
In the apology statement, the team said “hopefully we can wash this one off.”
This 1992 Chevy Pickup Has Been Hanging Off a Building for Over 30 Years (The Drive)
Oshawa Generals apologizing after sending letter asking smelly fans to shower before game (CTV News)
