DEARBORN, Mich. – The need for alternate sources of energy is bigger than politics. Environmental concerns about the continued use of fossil fuels aside, Americans on both sides of the proverbial aisle would welcome independence from expensive foreign oil, as sales of hybrid, electric, ethanol, and biodiesel cars continue to rise.
The one hindrance to widespread acceptance of gas-efficient or eschewing cars: Cash-strapped consumers in the Midwest and the Rust Belt already under financial strain don’t have much interest in or need to trade in their gas-guzzling SUVs and big-rig trucks for an electric car. For a new type of green car to take hold, it’s going to have to appeal to America’s heartland.
Scientists at the Ford Motor Company’s Fuel Labs Research Center in Dearborn, Michigan may have just created such a car. This year, Ford will roll out the first F-150 Heavy Duty JCM. It’s the first automobile in the world that runs on old John Cougar Mellencamp cassettes.
“This is a truck for real Americans,” Ford CEO Jim Hackett told reporters at a press conference. “And it runs on real American fuel: thirty-year-old cassettes containing songs about real American values, as recorded by John Cougar Mellencamp.”
While Ford is keeping the exact, proprietary science behind the project secret, Ford Fuel Labs director Alvin Massey joined Hackett to outline how the F-150 Heavy Duty JCM converts old John Cougar Mellencamp cassettes into a gasoline alternative.
“Let’s put it this way. For decades, millions of hard-working Americans hit a local bar or tavern after they complete an honest day of blue-collar labor at their town’s mill or factory, where they get recharged by having a couple of cold beers and popping ‘Cherry Bomb’ or ‘Authority Song’ on the jukebox,” Massey said. “The same way it gets them going in the bar, or in the backseat of a car on the night they knocked up their high school girlfriend who later became their first and third wife, the music of John Cougar Mellencamp gets a car’s motor going, too.”
Massey boasted that in preliminary tests, the F-150 Heavy Duty JCM exhibited comparable torque, towing capacity, and four-wheel-drive capabilities as a gasoline-powered, or “classic” Ford F-150. The major difference: Instead of running on gasoline, it can travel as far as 300 miles on a single fill-up, which is a tape-formatted copy of American Fool or Uh-Huh placed into the state-of-the-art gas tank, which is a tape deck fused to a tiny furnace and fuel pump.
John Cougar Mellencamp tapes, Hackett states, is an infinitely more renewable resource than petroleum.
“Market research indicates that every American home in a non-coastal state owns at least twenty John Cougar Mellencamp tapes,” Hackett said. “Midwesterners, just look in your current truck. There are probably three or four in the glove box, or on the floor underneath your seat, next to an old Mountain Dew bottle filled up halfway with tobacco spit. Also check your garage, your local Goodwill retail outlet, or the alley behind your favorite bar. Truck stops still sell them – check those little rotating racks on the counter. There’s bound to be a copy of The Lonesome Jubilee there.”
Hackett also noted that Ford wants to satisfy its many customers who prefer to drive diesel trucks. As such, there will be a Ford F-150 Heavy Duty JCM diesel variant. It runs on tapes issued during the period in which John Cougar Mellencamp was known only as “John Cougar.”
“Whether you’re driving through your small town to your little pink house, or just out in the field, working hard and trying to get a leg up, you can be sure that the Ford F-150 Heavy Duty JCM will hurt so good, just not in the wallet!” Hackett said with a huge grin on his face. “The walls that keep us dependent on foreign oil are crumbling down!”
“Those are all references to John Cougar Mellencamp songs,” Massey jumped in to explain to the visibly mystified members of the East Coast elite news media in attendance.
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