A Pickup Truck was a type of automobile used on Earth, during the 20th and 21st centuries. A light truck, a pickup consisted of a chassis for the engine and drive-transmission area, a cab with room for its driver, plus one (or more) passengers and an open air cargo area (tailgate). Initially built for agricultural use, the pickup soon became popular throughout human society.
The human farmer Jack Hayes owned a 1936 Ford pickup, which he had been driving before the Briori kidnapped him and 300 other humans, including pilot Amelia Earhart. After Hayes was taken from Earth and placed in stasis, the truck was jettisoned into interstellar space, in the Delta Quadrant. Over 400 years later, the truck was still floating, when it was discovered by the Federation starship USS Voyager. Lieutenant Tom Paris was able to get the truck working again, and found an old AM radio signal from a nearby, Class L planet picked up by the radio equipment in the truck. The crew was able to follow the signal to its source. (VOY episode: "The 37's")
In 1955, cameraman Zoltan and movie director Bovrille had a large film camera mounted in a pickup truck for location shooting in southern California. They noticed time travelers James T. Kirk and Andres racing in chariots along a California freeway, and pursued them in the truck, filming the chase. (TOS comic: "A Bomb in Time")
In the 1980s. Doctor Gillian Taylor owned a Chevrolet pickup truck, which she used as her personal automobile. This vehicle was able to hold her, plus up to two passengers. After encountering then-Admiral James T. Kirk and Captain Spock at the Cetacean Institute - who had traveled in time from the 23rd century to retrieve humpback whales - she used this truck to give Spock a ride back to Golden Gate Park, and took Admiral Kirk to dinner, before returning him to the park as well. She left her vehicle behind at Golden Gate Park when she traveled to the late 23rd century. (TOS movie: Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home)
When Voyager was pulled back across space and time to orbit Earth in 1996, Tom Paris and Lieutenant Tuvok used a Dodge pickup to travel to the Griffith Observatory to find the young woman who had been tracking Voyager as it orbited the Earth, and to ensure any data collected was erased. The truck was vaporized by Henry Starling's associate, H. Dunbar. Dunbar was driving a "semi truck"; a larger scale vehicle which used a different fossil fuel. (VOY episode: "Future's End")
See Also[]
- Pickup truck article at Memory Alpha, the wiki for canon Star Trek.
- Pickup truck article at Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.