In the future - when I own my three-wheeled truck - my monthly transportation costs (car payment, insurance, gasoline, repairs) will be lower than at any other time in my life, except for the two times my wife and I did without a car.
And driving around Wortley Village to pick up groceries and the odd bag of nails in a three-wheeled truck will make me the outstanding rebel of the entire community.
I so look forward to driving a new “Made in Canada” vehicle, the cheaper costs and my top position in the Village’s pecking order. (I’ll try to remain humble).
Of course, a large committee of politicians and community leaders still need to meet and formulate a plan to REOPEN and REUSE the now closed Ford Talbotville plant outside London, Ontario as a three-wheeled truck maker, and - just as important, eh - a manufacturer still needs to build them.
[“Let’s REOPEN Ford Talbotville aka Falcon Heights”: photo link]
The plant is absolutely huge. Three-wheeled truck making won’t fill the place, so perhaps the aforementioned committee will consider other uses for the building at the same time.
For example, I see my three-wheeled truck as the second-last vehicle in my life. Once fuel prices get right out of control (“It’s stratospheric, Baby, stratospheric!”) I’ll talk my wife into sharing an industrial tricycle with enclosed cab and small red cedar box on the back (homemade, perhaps) for carting our weekly groceries and specialty beverages.
[“I see red paint and a red cedar box on this perky model”: photo link]
The REOPENED plant, aka Falcon Heights (a Ford Falcon was the first car off the line in 1967), could be home to a hundred other useful, sustainable enterprises as well.
For example:
Recycled plastic could be reused in picnic tables, chairs, benches and dozens of other products built on site
Rescued lumber could be reused in birdhouses, tables, chairs, boxes (for the back of adult funcycles) and dozens of other products built on site
Local landfills or refuse destined for landfills could be mined and sorted for reusable materials or products on site
Rescued landfill materials, e.g., plastic, lumber, metal, etc., could be reused on site or sold to other manufacturers
The arable land around the plant could be farmed annually and its produce sold at the Falcon Heights Farmers Market on site
Some of the acres of tarmac, once covered by newly-manufactured Fords and the parked cars of plant employees could be removed and recycled and the land (once returned to full health) used as a reforestation project by Reforest London - to help them reach their goal of planting one million trees in ten years
Other acres of tarmac could be covered with solar panels and wind turbines built on site - to help power certain enterprises
Many other ideas will spring to minds more fertile than my own.
Let me know what you think would work at Falcon Heights.
Do you love your current or future three-wheeled truck as much as I do?
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Please click here to read Live Small and Prosper PT 3: “I love my three-wheeled truck.”
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